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5 Best Practices for Network Bandwidth Management

Preparation is key to keeping networks running smoothly despite March Madness live streaming

Even non-sports fans can get swept up in March Madness mania – creating brackets, participating in office pools and reigniting old college rivalries can be a fun way to get through the last dregs of winter and liven up the office environment.

However, when it comes to live streaming games on company-owned devices, on the company network and/or during office hours, end users can wreak havoc on the network.

Jump to Bandwidth Risk Assessment infographic below

So how can IT pros prepare for March Madness (and other popular live streaming events)? We've compiled five tips to help keep networks running smoothly:

1. Educate

Sometimes it takes a gentle nudge to remind end users that live streaming non-work related content on company property during work hours isn't the best use of their time or the company's resources.

We created a handy decision-making flowchart that you can share to help employees draw the ultimate conclusion: during March Madness, mind your bandwidth!

2. Monitor Your Current Traffic Profile

There are numerous hardware and software tools that allow you to monitor, profile and baseline your current network traffic to identify when and how bandwidth is being consumed, as well as by whom and by what applications.

Further, many tools will give you the ability to map bandwidth usage and its impact on your applications.

3. Establish Traffic Management or Quality of Service (QoS) Policies

Various network traffic management tools allow you to establish and monitor QoS policies to ensure that business-critical traffic, such as voice over IP (VOIP) or Web access to cloud-based applications, takes priority over nonessential traffic.

4. Optimize WAN Capacity or WAN Links

Purchasing additional bandwidth is not the only way to increase your WAN capacity. WAN acceleration will effectively increase or optimize the usage of your WAN. Or if you utilize multiple WAN links, you can direct your business-critical traffic across one link while sending the less essential traffic across another.

5. Back Up Your Network Configurations

Just in case your network does go down, you need to ensure that you have backed up your device configurations so you can quickly revert back to a known good configuration.

By following these five tips, you can prevent fouling out on network uptime and turn bandwidth management during March Madness into a slam dunk!

ABOUT Brad Hale

Brad Hale joined SolarWinds in 2009 and is the Product Marketing Principal for network management products, bringing over 20 years of product management, product marketing, business development and strategy experience in the software, systems, and semiconductor industries. Hale holds an MBA from Butler University and a BS in Computer Engineering from Purdue University.


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Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

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Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

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5 Best Practices for Network Bandwidth Management

Preparation is key to keeping networks running smoothly despite March Madness live streaming

Even non-sports fans can get swept up in March Madness mania – creating brackets, participating in office pools and reigniting old college rivalries can be a fun way to get through the last dregs of winter and liven up the office environment.

However, when it comes to live streaming games on company-owned devices, on the company network and/or during office hours, end users can wreak havoc on the network.

Jump to Bandwidth Risk Assessment infographic below

So how can IT pros prepare for March Madness (and other popular live streaming events)? We've compiled five tips to help keep networks running smoothly:

1. Educate

Sometimes it takes a gentle nudge to remind end users that live streaming non-work related content on company property during work hours isn't the best use of their time or the company's resources.

We created a handy decision-making flowchart that you can share to help employees draw the ultimate conclusion: during March Madness, mind your bandwidth!

2. Monitor Your Current Traffic Profile

There are numerous hardware and software tools that allow you to monitor, profile and baseline your current network traffic to identify when and how bandwidth is being consumed, as well as by whom and by what applications.

Further, many tools will give you the ability to map bandwidth usage and its impact on your applications.

3. Establish Traffic Management or Quality of Service (QoS) Policies

Various network traffic management tools allow you to establish and monitor QoS policies to ensure that business-critical traffic, such as voice over IP (VOIP) or Web access to cloud-based applications, takes priority over nonessential traffic.

4. Optimize WAN Capacity or WAN Links

Purchasing additional bandwidth is not the only way to increase your WAN capacity. WAN acceleration will effectively increase or optimize the usage of your WAN. Or if you utilize multiple WAN links, you can direct your business-critical traffic across one link while sending the less essential traffic across another.

5. Back Up Your Network Configurations

Just in case your network does go down, you need to ensure that you have backed up your device configurations so you can quickly revert back to a known good configuration.

By following these five tips, you can prevent fouling out on network uptime and turn bandwidth management during March Madness into a slam dunk!

ABOUT Brad Hale

Brad Hale joined SolarWinds in 2009 and is the Product Marketing Principal for network management products, bringing over 20 years of product management, product marketing, business development and strategy experience in the software, systems, and semiconductor industries. Hale holds an MBA from Butler University and a BS in Computer Engineering from Purdue University.


Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ...