Bottlenecking

Bottlenecking in an information technology context is when the flow of data is slowed or stopped in a network. It can occur for a number of reasons, but bottlenecking boils down to insufficient data handling capacity to deal with the current volume of traffic.

In most cases, the causes of bottlenecking are related to system elements competing for internal server resources. According to Tech Target, a bottleneck often develops because of poor network or storage fabric design. Mismatched hardware is probably the most common cause of bottlenecking. IT experts say storage networks also frequently suffer from excess fan-in, where several storage devices are connected to the same switch port.  This can lead to data congestion when more than one storage device is active simultaneously.

Bottlenecks can also be related to due to sub-optimal configuration of switches or host bus adapters. It’s also common for bottlenecks to gradually develop over a period of time because system and database administrators don’t take sufficient steps to address increasing network traffic.

The best way to avoid bottlenecking is careful hardware selection, proactively monitoring traffic load trends over time and making the necessary system upgrades before problems crop up.

Idera’s award-winning SQL Diagnostic Manager server management solution is designed to help you identify and locate system bottlenecks. With SQL dm you can immediately discover which databases, applications, statements or users are waiting the longest for resources, as well as quickly and easily find out which resources are causing the delays so you can fix the bottleneck.