When you want to update your network for your business, it can be a very tedious process due to the fact that your network touches every aspect of your businesses overall IT infrastructure. It can impact a wide range of people if you don’t do it correctly. Everyone within your business from your employees to your customers can be affected by a network upgrade. Network upgrades have the potential to cause more disruptions to your business compared to other IT upgrades. That’s why it is absolutely crucial to have a plan in place if you are considering upgrading your network.

Figure out what you need today, tomorrow, and three years from now. When you are installing a network upgrade, you can’t just take it one day at a time. While you should satisfy your network needs for today, you also need to plan for the future. You need to plan and identify what’s needed to be efficient for your business. By researching network data, you can ensure that the upgrade you perform today can be used for years to come.

Notify end users. Communication is so important to be successful during a network upgrade. The network is going to affect everyone, which means you must communicate what the impact of the upgrade will have on each person. If there are any changes to how employees interact with the network infrastructure in any way, you need to let people know what changes there are going to be.

Build security within the upgrade process. When planning for and creating the upgrade, make sure to add as much security is possible within the entire process. It’s often tempting to avoid taking security measures just to get things up and running faster. However, these shortcuts will leave huge holes in security that would make it easy for an outside source to access your business.

Have a back-out strategy. Far too often when people are updating their network, they don’t plan for a strategy if things go wonky. Don’t be one of these people. Spend time thinking about a back-out strategy just in case things don’t go your way. Even if you don’t ever need it, it is a great idea to have a plan in place.

Document everything. People don’t often think about how important it is to document the new network. Document the upgrade, how the new technology works, and how to maintain it once it’s in production. These documents should then be reviewed and updated on a regular basis. An upgraded network that has detailed documentation is far more likely to be successful when staff has the information they can refer to for questions or help.

Resources:

http://www.networkcomputing.com/networking/7-tips-upgrading-your-network/1778847341