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The internet is an indispensable resource for the great majority of companies, considering the volume of operational activities with their execution associated to this service. In this sense, it is essential to maintain the availability of this resource, in order to avoid interruptions of activities critical to the business. The application of measures that ensure the efficiency of the internet resource, such as link redundancy, Load Balancing and QoS (Quality of Service), are alternatives that can improve the users’ experience in the use of the resource.
Optimizing the internet resource is essential, since it is a finite asset with relatively high cost, especially in cases of dedicated corporate circuits with high capacity and robustness. Band prioritization/assurance, through QoS, is a widely used alternative to guarantee the quality of priority access in the corporate environment. Providing access to the internet, in a personalized way, treating sectors/users or applications differently, is fundamental for most companies.
In this post, we will present essential QoS (Quality of Service) concepts, including information on how it works and benefits from its application in organizations.
Enjoy the reading!
Problem Characterization
Imagine a corporate scenario where there is no kind of control over users’ web navigation. The environment has only one internet link, shared among the organization’s employees. In this scenario, all requests for Internet access are simultaneous, acting concurrently, that is, without prioritization of any kind. Therefore, contributors who try to access websites or business critical web applications (banks, nfe, erps) compete with users who access game sites, videos, or use the corporate link to download files, or unrelated accesses to its end activity.
Based on the example provided, it is fundamental the traffic of these critical applications should take priority over the other requisitions, made by employees. The prioritization of these accesses comes through QoS (Quality of Service), which makes it possible to make available the internet resource in a personalized way, aiming to guarantee internet resource for the full operation of critical access for the business.
What is QoS, anyway?
QoS, or Quality of Service, is a set of mechanisms that ensures the performance of critical applications, guaranteeing enough bandwidth for their correct operation. Its concept is based on the idea that access should not be treated in an equal way, allowing prioritization of specific traffic.
By using it, professionals can change the way network packets are routed to the internet or other networks, allowing existing resources to be used more efficiently. With QoS, packets are marked to distinguish service types, and routers are configured to create separate virtual queues for each application, according to their priority.
In this way, a zone in the bandwidth is reserved for some types of websites or applications for priority access. There are also other protocols and algorithms used to improve the management of the internet resource, enhancing the experience obtained with the application of QoS.
Benefits generated by QoS application
Deployment of QoS is undoubtedly crucial to ensuring the availability of business-critical applications. This is because, in some cases, they demand differentiated bandwidth, as well as ensuring that data transmission occurs without any interruptions or packet losses. Here are some of the benefits QoS brings to the corporate environment:
- Ensures that mission-critical applications always have the necessary resources for their operation;
- Enables administrators to better manage internet resources;
- Reduction of costs, through the efficient use of the internet resource, postponing investments in the expansion of links;
- Minimizes the impact of concurrent non-work-related traffic;
- Improves user experience, ensuring better response times, according to the priority of access.
In most companies, the QoS concept is not applied properly, or not even applied, reflecting a number of business problems. Frequent demands for expansion of the internet resource, generated by unsatisfactory user experiences, can often be circumvented through the application of control mechanisms, which value security and availability. Therefore, before investing in the expansion of the internet resource, carefully evaluate your physical and logical structure and check if there are points to be improved, so your company can make better use of existing resources and make more assertive investments.
Have you already used traffic prioritization techniques to manage accesses in your company? Transmit your experience through our Blog and if you need technical assistance, count on our team of experts, we certainly have a differentiated solution for your business!
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