Deciding to upgrade your office network in any way can be a nightmare reserved for the first circle of Dante’s Inferno. Leaving you in an endless limbo of despondency that slowly drips days then weeks and months of your productivity.

To accomplish a pristine upgrade we turn to the 3 essentials for upgrading the office network.

Cat 6a‘s for networking, 10gig enabled hardware (adapters, switch router and server network card). And the most important element when designing an effective network is reliable internet speeds.

Right away I should point out that at Techretaries we work with a lot of Media and Design Firms. As a result, we work with and around Macintosh environments almost all of the time. As a result, this network upgrade guide will, alienate some Windows users. But hey, Microsoft has been doing that all along without our help anyway.

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“That’s why we only use Magix Music Maker for WIndows NT.”

So we begin…

The interconnectivity of a successful office relies’s first on network cabling.

Network cables are the glue binding all of your high internet speeds and your project backup speeds both to physical servers and the cloud. Physically hard wiring everything allows for maximum information flow. Cat 7’s were the latest and greatest for a few minutes in the early 2000’s but nobody wanted to abandon the RJ45 connectors. So the industry defaults to Category 6a cables or Cat6a. They use the ubiquitous RJ45 connector and they have the same 10 Gigabit Ethernet capacity as Cat 7’s.

The next phase has to do with the potential for bottlenecks.

Meaning the information tunneling through the fast flowing network cables might be stifled the moment it arrives at your source. Or stifled on the way out. If your network cards can’t handle the speeds e.g. 4 Gigabit capacity network card installed in your computer receiving 10 Gigabits of information. You’ll need an upgrade. This means we need network cards, routers, switches, and bridges that are all capable of 10 Gigabit throughput. For best connection to a computer port, use the ethernet connection or use USB-C which share the same port and connector as Apples’ Thunderbolt. These connections provide a 10 Gigabit throughput that will not bottleneck your network activity as you upload and download.

Now that everything is connected to allow for the most potential information flow through your office network…

Check the internet connection.

It doesn’t matter how up to date your network cables and hardware are, you’ll need solid upload and download speeds from the source. The dreaded Internet Service Provider or ISP. Fiber optic cable is slowly making it’s way to homes and offices but the technology is replacing a well-ingrained out of date infrastructure. Leading many ISP’s to drag their feet on updating existing infrastructure. But fiber isn’t out of the question these days. And it provides the fastest internet speeds on the market.

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“So fast I’m going to start Googling my problems instead of asking you, Bob.”

Having laid everything out, let’s discuss the potential that you don’t have access to fiber, can’t afford new network cards, routers, switches, and bridges. And dropping new network cables is out of the questions.

The optimal end result is using the network you have to its maximum potential.

Maybe you have healthy internet speeds, adequate network cabling and all you need a new network card. Or maybe all the computers in the office are brand new and you just need to drop new Cat6a’s. Maybe you just need a new ISP. Getting the most out of what is available bodes well for any business.

However you decide to rig your new setup, remember upgrading an office network relies on 3 essentials: Network Cables, 10GigE hardware, and fast internet. And if you don’t have access to the best, maximize the potential of the best you’ve got.

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“When I said fiber optics, the guy at the store gave me this. Is this fibrous enough to do networking?”

If you have extra questions, send us a message.

Or maybe you’d like us to upgrade your network, send us a message.

Perhaps you would like something completely different, you guessed it, send us a message.

We love to brainstorm with people about all the different ways of getting a new business up and running or onto the next level.