NETWORK

OPTIMIZATION
STRATEGIES

Presenter

CHRISTIAN G. VELCHEZ
Student, Masters in Information Technology
 What is Network Optimization?

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 NETWORK OPTIMIZATION
Network optimization is a set of tools and techniques
used to improve network performance and reliability.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 How is network optimization
being measured?

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 How is network optimization being
measured?
1. Latency and round-trip time (RTT) are closely related, and
both deal with the speed of a network

• Latency is the time it

takes data to go from
source to destination.

• RTT is the time it takes

for data to go from
source to destination
and back again.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 How is network optimization being
measured?
2. Jitter is the absolute
value of the difference
between the forwarding
delay of two consecutive
received packets
belonging to the same
stream.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 How is network optimization being
measured?
For example, suppose we got the following response from a ping of
a network device:

Given response times of 21ms, 15ms, 10ms, and 35ms we get a

jitter value of 12ms.
Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES
 How is network optimization being
measured?
3. Packet errors, packet discards, and packet loss

•Packet errors refer to issues with

network packets that are corrupt or
incorrectly formatted.
•Packet discards occur when received
packets are dropped at their destination,
usually because the packets have an
error or the network device is overloaded.
•Packet loss occurs when a packet is
dropped before it reaches its destination.
Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES
 How is network optimization being
measured?
4. Bandwidth and throughput

bandwidth is the theoretical

maximum amount of data
that can be transmitted, while;
throughput is the amount of
data actually flowing between
network devices.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 What Affects Network
Optimization?

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 What Affects Network Optimization?
1. Network size
2. Geographical distance
3. Last and middle-mile problems
4. Wired and wireless connectivity issues
5. Network device bottlenecks
6. Network design and configuration
7. Types of network traffic
8. Change/patch management

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 What Affects Network Optimization?
1. Network size
The number of network devices, endpoints, users, and
applications on your network can have a major impact on
bandwidth utilization and network data flows.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 What Affects Network Optimization?
2. Geographical Distance
For networks that span large geographical distances,
speed-of-light problems are very much a real thing.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 What Affects Network Optimization?
3. Last and Middle-mile problems
The last mile is the last (or first) hop between an ISP and
the destination (or source) of data. The middle mile is the
infrastructure (usually belonging to one or more ISPs)
between the first and last mile.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 What Affects Network Optimization?
4. Wired and wireless connectivity issues.
The physical medium used for network data transmission
can impact network performance.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 What Affects Network Optimization?
4. Network device bottlenecks
In some cases, older network devices simply don’t have
the bandwidth available to match the rest of the network
(e.g. a 10/100Mb switch on a gigabit network).

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 What Affects Network Optimization?
5. Types of Network Traffic
The type of traffic generated by the users, applications,
and services on your network can impact both how your
network performs and what you can do to optimize it.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 RELIABLE NETWORK
OPTIMIZATION
TECHNIQUES

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 RELIABLE NETWORK OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
These stats are based on recommendations for Microsoft Teams and Zoom
because applications like these are some of the most common performance-
sensitive apps around:

• End-to-end latency under 50ms

• Round-trip time of less than 100ms
• Jitter of less than 30ms
• Packet loss of less than 1%

Remember, for these numbers, lower = better

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 RELIABLE NETWORK OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
7 Network Optimization Techniques To Try

1. QoS (Quality of Service)

2. Load balancing
3. TCP optimization
4. Compression
5. Router buffer tuning
6. Data caching
7. Network design and hardware improvements

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 RELIABLE NETWORK OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
7 Network Optimization Techniques To Try

1. QoS (Quality of Service)

QoS allows you to prioritize certain network traffic and is one of
the textbook network optimization tools. By prioritizing critical
latency-sensitive services (like VoIP) over less sensitive services (like
email), you can improve overall network performance and user
experience

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 RELIABLE NETWORK OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
7 Network Optimization Techniques To Try

2. Load Balancing

Load balancing across different network servers and

network devices allows you to mitigate the likelihood of a
single device becoming a bottleneck.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 RELIABLE NETWORK OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
7 Network Optimization Techniques To Try

3. TCP Optimization

With TCP optimization, routing devices fine-tune how TCP

traffic is processed to reduce overall RTT

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 RELIABLE NETWORK OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
7 Network Optimization Techniques To Try

4. Compression

Many network devices and optimizer appliances offer a

payload compression functionality.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 RELIABLE NETWORK OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
7 Network Optimization Techniques To Try

5. Router buffer tuning

When there are bursts of network traffic, router buffers

can become overloaded, leading to dropped packets.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 RELIABLE NETWORK OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
7 Network Optimization Techniques To Try

6. Data caching

The caching of frequently accessed data — like what

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) do for web servers —
can have a significantly positive impact on bandwidth
consumption and network device resource utilization.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 RELIABLE NETWORK OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
7 Network Optimization Techniques To Try

7. Network design and hardware improvements.

In some cases, you may need to change your network

topology or hardware to address bottlenecks and
performance issues.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 RELIABLE NETWORK OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
7 Network Optimization Techniques To Try

7. Network design and hardware improvements.

In some cases, you may need to change your network

topology or hardware to address bottlenecks and
performance issues.

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES
 Thank You!

Optimization and Performance Tuning NETWORK OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES