Network Bottleneck is a condition in which dataflow in a network is restricted by the lack of resources. The data flow in a network is controlled through the bandwidth of the network computers. A network bottleneck happens when the network systems start attempting to deliver volumes of data higher than their capacity.
Network bottleneck is also addressed as a hotspot or just bottleneck. Has your PC ever become slow out of nowhere? How to know if it is a bottleneck in your network or just a hardware problem? Is there a way to avoid it? In this article, we will discuss what actually causes a network bottleneck, how to identify a bottleneck, common types of bottlenecks, and what measures you should take to avoid a network bottleneck.
Understanding the Bottlenecks
A computer system only works at its processor’s speed, NIC’s speed, cache speed, and memory size. These systems can only receive and process the amount of data allowed by their capacity. A bottleneck usually occurs when system data is larger than the designated data transfer speeds, thus straining the system bandwidth.
When a network bottleneck occurs, the communications speeds become slow and thus limiting user efficiency and productivity. You can understand it better with a traffic example. Imagine a highway having four lanes, and suddenly the number of functioning lanes becomes one. There will be an immediate decrease in traffic speed, as the road size cannot accommodate the volume of cars at their previous speeds, so the traffic is bound to slow down.
Most Common Network Bottlenecks
In the network history, some recurrent reasons for network bottlenecks have been observed. Having a network upon which your business highly depends, you need to take measures to prevent it from happening. We are going to discuss the most common causes of a network bottleneck
Bandwidth Monopoly
Bandwidth hogging has caused the most bottlenecks in network history. A bandwidth hog happens when the network traffic is more than the network bandwidth, thus delaying the network tasks. This happens when a certain resource is using up a large percentage of the network bandwidth, and the routine network tasks are going side by side. This can happen by downloading or streaming heavy media during the network’s busy hours. It can be prevented by using network monitoring software to detect the resources that might be hogging the network.
Small Network Bandwidth
If your network has a limited allocated bandwidth by your Internet Service Provider (ISP), then the chance of network bottleneck occurring is greater. You can avoid it by updating your internet plan with your ISP.
Device Overload
If a network is concentrated with a lot of devices, it can slow down the access of the concentrated segment. Device concentration can occur by using a large number of servers and switches in a small area segment. You can deal with this situation by reducing the number of devices in the respective area segment.
Broken Devices
Sometimes, a single network device can malfunction and swarm the network with fake traffic. You can detect it by observing slow network speeds in a particular network segment. Try connecting that segment with a different port or try replacing the cable and see if the problem subsides.
Overloaded Servers
Another cause of your network speed slowing down is that your server is bearing too much load, thus causing a network bottleneck. In case you have a single server handling file sharing, company intranet, email, accounting software, SQL server, etc, it is about time you add one or two more servers for load sharing. If you cannot add another server, then try adding a network interface or upgrading your server’s RAM capacity.
Speed Mismatch
Speed mismatch can cause a digital bottleneck by slowing down communication in the network. It happens when a lot of devices approach the server at the same time.
Malware
If there is no apparent reason for the drastic decrease in your network speed, there is a chance of malware damage. Even if you have effective antivirus software installed and protect the network, you still need to check for viruses present in your network.
Avoiding Bottleneck Issues
Network bottlenecking is a common problem, faced by all business professionals to some extent. This can impact your office productivity and may slow you down in your journey toward your business goals. This is why taking measures to avoid bottlenecks is important for all business professionals. Here are a few strategies using which you can avoid and deal with a bottleneck issue.
Monitoring network traffic
By monitoring your network continuously, you can most likely detect network congestion before it worsens. It allows you to identify the problematic network segments and get a better understanding of the problem. You can control the network traffic distribution and redirect some of the traffic from the problematic segments to reduce the intensity of the congestion.
Strategic segmenting of your network
By segmenting your network wisely, you can avoid an overflow of network traffic that can cause congestion. Network segmentation involves dividing your network into smaller sub-networks. By grouping your network resources strategically you can easily monitor your network in detail and have a better insight into any problem that arises.
Deploying a CDN
CDN stands for Content Delivery Network. A CDN allows you to optimize and monitor the static content and its flow. It redirects the static content toward the edge servers and stores it there. It allows the number of network requests in the network traffic to decrease by a significant amount. CDN also helps in bandwidth management, which helps in avoids network congestion.
Reconfiguring the network settings
Reconfiguring the network setting and syncing the requesting and receiving speeds by adjusting the TCP/IP settings. It is because the different requesting and receiving speeds of some devices result in serious network congestion. Reconfiguring your network allows your network to process the network traffic better and minimize the chances of network congestion.
Prioritize your network traffic
Prioritizing your network traffic allows you to optimize your network bandwidth and utilize it in a better way. You need to determine which network traffic has the highest priority for your business. You can reconfigure your router to prioritize this flow of data, thus minimizing the effect of any congestion occurring on your business.
Assess your network hardware
Having outdated hardware instantly reduces the network traffic, which can be a cause of network congestion. You need to keep your network hardware updated and replace the problematic ones continuously so that it can deal with the ever-increasing network traffics efficiently.
Following these practical strategies can help you better understand different bottleneck issues. It might help you secure your network beforehand and prevent unnecessary delays in your business progress that might occur due to network congestion.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a network bottleneck and what causes it?
A network bottleneck is a congestion occurring in a network, slowing or stopping the network traffic because of it. It occurs when the data flow of the network is badly affected by the limitation of resources in the network. It occurs usually because the network bandwidth is not sufficient to support the volume of data and its data speed.
What are the four ways to ease a bottleneck?
Here are four ways you can use to deal with a network bottleneck
- WAN optimization
- Leaf Spine architectures
- Load balancing
- Visual Port Channel
How can you avoid network-based bottlenecks?
One way to avoid it is to run the LAN ports at a higher speed than the employee computers. A server can also use more than one network card to improve performance.
What is bandwidth bottleneck?
A bandwidth bottleneck happens when the available bandwidth becomes insufficient to accumulate the incoming data packets and deal with them timely. It causes the network traffic speed to reduce drastically or come to a halt.
Does bottleneck reduce performance?
Yes, as a bottleneck causes a computer or a server to slow down because of a network overload. The devices not keeping up with the pace of the data speed results in the overall network speed slowing down, thus negatively affecting the network performance.
Conclusion
A network bottleneck is a phenomenon where the network resources fall short while dealing with network traffic, thus slowing down or halting the network traffic. A network bottleneck is something that you come across at least once while managing a network. Having knowledge about how to respond to it and stop it from worsening will help a lot in preserving your business progress.