Networking
Networking in its simplest form is the sharing of resources. These resources can be files, printers, databases, contacts, computers, wireless access points, the Internet and many other business objects.
If data is shared it allows multiple users to co-operate on projects and be able to see other users work in real time. The alternative to this is having multiple versions of data on multiple machines. This leads to inefficiency and the major problem of version control. Data can also be centrally backed up.
Sharing printers means being able to have a small number of quality printers and share them between all users. Apart from better performance, other benefits of this compared with each user having their own printer are that system support is easier, desk space is saved and costs are lower.
Efficient sharing of Internet connections is a major benefit to business owners. Atomik.biz recommends having fault tolerant Internet connections. A typical scenario is having two good quality Internet connections connected to a fault tolerant router. In the event of one connection failing the router will automatically use the other connection. While both connections are working the business will benefit from the greater performance of load balancing the traffic over both links.
Sharing of business contacts allows centralised lists to be maintained and minimises the admin of maintaining the list.