While this may seem obvious, many times businesses are so focused on the initial equipment and implementation costs of their network infrastructure that they don’t think about future-proofing their investment. Your must consider projected growth (in personnel, bandwidth, and traffic) when considering hardware and carrier requirements. Planning for what your organization will look like in 5 years is a good guideline.

PRO TIP: It is always much less expensive to opt for the right gear the first time than it is to rip-and-replace in a couple years because you’ve outgrown your hardware.

Network solutions today tout “anytime, anywhere, from any device.” While that provides a great level of convenience and the opportunity to improve customer experience, it can also be a security nightmare. You need to determine who can access what and where they can access from. Also, consider if you will be providing the devices or if BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is an acceptable risk.

PRO-TIP: If you opt for BYOD you must consider what happens if you need to terminate that access and wipe data.

Many people will opt out of manufacturer extended warranties and expedited support and hardware replacement and gamble that they never have a need for it. While network hardware is much more reliable than it used to be, it’s still hardware, it can still fail. When considering whether or not to spend that extra money, just do the math, calculate the cost of your downtime, and decide if you can risk it. You also must consider if you have the in-house expertise to make changes and manage the hardware (we can definitely help with that!).

PRO-TIP: Always save your work! If you are managing your devices in-house always be sure you take a backup of the device configuration before you start making changes or updates. If your changes or updates break anything you can just roll-back to that old configuration while you troubleshoot.

All of the high-speed gear in the world means nothing if your Internet bandwidth can’t handle the traffic. ISP (Internet Service Providers) offerings today are surprisingly affordable and even in areas where major providers aren’t available there are options (consider satellite – and no, it’s not like TV). With CCC, you literally “have the hookup.” We partner with the best providers and can often get you discounts not otherwise available.

PRO-TIP: Consider network cabling inside the network design as well. Gigabit devices can only perform as well as the cabling connecting them.