How to get your Network Office 365-ready
First, ensure that your current SharePoint environment is performing correctly. SharePoint can be the cause of a lot of traffic over the network There are various actions that technical architects can implement to speed up traffic between SharePoint servers and improve overall network performance,
with one of the most effective being traffic isolation, in which the physical and virtual connections between system components are kept separate from each other.
with one of the most effective being traffic isolation, in which the physical and virtual connections between system components are kept separate from each other.
Implementing traffic isolation
can be a fairly straightforward process depending upon the existing network
configuration and design. By way of example, consider a typical small
SharePoint deployment that
consists of one database server, one application server, two web servers and a
directory server. In many cases, these components all have a single network interface
connected to a shared switch. A more efficient approach would be to utilize
multiple network interfaces in each server and connect them to virtual local
area networks (VLAN) on the same switch. For example, the web servers may have
three interfaces, one which connects to the corporate network, one which
connects to an authentication network, and one which connects to a database
network. In this manner
traffic between the web servers
and the database, which comprises the bulk of SharePoint network communication,
can be isolated to a single interface separate from the interface used
by employees to browse pages and
upload files. Similarly, communication with directory
services to facilitate logins and
authentication requests will have its own channel to exchange information.
Another very useful technique is to configure SharePoint services that generate
a lot of network traffic, like search, to only communicate with a dedicated
server instead of the general-purpose web servers.
Once your
on-premises network is optimized you are in a better position to consider
moving data to the cloud and deploy hybrid services. Office 365 supports automated
means of moving large quantities of data, but speeds as low as 1 gigabyte per
hour are not uncommon. So clearly there is a need for not only proper planning
of time and resource allocation, but also incoming and outgoing bandwidth.
Onpremises servers need to be running optimally, as migration tasks consume
additional bandwidth on top of normal collaboration activities, and external links
must be optimized to facilitate a great deal more traffic than normal
day-to-day web browsing.
Comments
Post a Comment