Network Consulting
Analysis, diagnosis & resolution
pkNetworks provide consultancy for all four of our services, data networking, building automation, telephony and security. If you only want a quote on automating your home or installing a new network design we can carry out an audit and come up with a competitive price and design.
We also provide a consultancy service to customers experiencing network or telephony issues or problems. We'll diagnose a Network for any issues (most typically latency), isolate the problem, be it a virus or a basic design concern, suggest the solution and remedy the issue on a case per case basis...
In a world where terms such as virus, phishing and spam have entered the vernacular one word more than any other is mentioned; Security... PK Networks can audit your network, isolate security holes and bolt the network door shut.
Design
Our design Architects will consult with you and gain all the necessary information to create the most efficient, feature rich and cost effective solution. Design also means future proofing your network or building so that it is in the right position to handle growth and emerging technologies. The technologies we use are always backwards compatible. In the field of telephony for example significant costs can be saved by utilising Voice over IP.
KNX for example being so flexible and having so many manufacturers producing so many diverse products has brought unthought-of of possibilities to building control thus making new designs possible. Smart money says smart design.
Consultancy Case Study
The Customer was experiencing intermittent network performance, affecting internet access and certain in-house applications i.e printing and response times accessing files stored on Servers. Also as their Telephony system sent calls over the network they complained of dropped calls and echo.
Investigation
After taking details of the problem an Engineer was sent to site to gain firsthand experience of the problem. He stayed on site long enough to experience the issue for himself. Using Lan analysis tools and network sniffers tests were carried out on Voice and Data and typical network traffic was captured.
Solution
From a network design perspective this network was not optimal nor designed with security in mind in a number of areas. Also the various test results showed the frequency of the network latency and the times of day when it was being experienced (between 09:30 and 16:30). This last point tipped us off to the possibility of an infected or faulty user PC.
Using the 24hr data capture and looking at the times of the latency a correlation was found i.e. at the time of the network lag an extremely high percentage of the data packets were broadcast in nature. We traced the source IP address and MAC address to be a user with a faulty Network Card. This was immediately replaced and resolved the issue.
Finally our network design suggestions were implemented by the customer, i.e Vlans per floor thus breaking up broadcast domains, fixed bandwidth for VoIP calls ensuring no dropped Telephone calls and lastly a standalone firewall was installed to protect the LAN.