Network Slowness Troubleshooting

How many of you are also tired of hearing the #1 complaint from users, "The network is so slow" and without anything to backup the claim.

This post is going to focus on what can be done/provided to quickly either identify a network issue or pass it to the correct source of the issue.

First step is to identify similarities. If multiple users are complaining of slow network. It's best to start local to the person or site that is reporting the issue. Closest to the source of the ticket is the user(s) workstations/laptops.

Is it with one area/floor of a site? (identify access switch issues)

Is it with just one application? (possibly network issues at the destination)

Is it with multiple applications located at the same destination facility? (possibly Hosting Facility issues)

Is it with multiple applications using same firewall?

Check the access switch that connects all the workstations if users experiencing slow response times are all connected to an access switch.

If the entire site, check the core switch for errors?

Understand the Path

First let's understand that network traffic travels over a path and sometimes that path may be divided into transmit (tx) and receive (rx).

Also we have multiple touch points/hops/hardware on a path that could be affecting the traffic.