Atlanta 12/2/2010 12:44:23 AM
News / Internet

Healthy Computer Network System Vital for Businesses Looking to Capitalize on Growth of Online Shoppers, Defragmentation Software the Simple Solution

In a report released today it was revealed that online shoppers spent just over $1 billion on Cyber Monday, the first time that figure has ever been eclipsed on the Internet’s equivalent to Black Friday. This should be a clear sign to businesses that consumers are more than willing to spend their holiday dollars while sitting in front of their computers rather than jumping in their car and bouncing from store to store in search of deals. With this growing trend to shop online businesses, now more than ever, need to ensure that their websites are capable of handling the demands of additional traffic. Failing to meet these demands will almost certainly result in lost sales as well as project a negative image of the business.

What businesses have to realize is that they have a small window in which to capture consumers. Unlike traditional brick-and-mortar stores in which shoppers can spend hours searching through aisles and racks a website has just a few minutes to capture the attention of the shopper before they move on to the next website. This means that when shoppers do come across a website it is imperative that it not only looks good but is operational.


A business may spend a lot of time working with web designers and online marketers to create the most appealing site but if visitors can’t move from page to page in a quick manner or run across problems on a payment page then all of those efforts are in vain. Businesses have to remember why shoppers have turned to the Internet for their holiday needs, it’s nothing more complicated than convenience.


Convenience is closely tied to speed, meaning shoppers want to be able to click a few buttons and know their purchase is complete and ready for delivery. If there is any sort of delay in this process a shopper could quickly abandon the website and find a competitor that is better equipped to meet their needs. What this means for a business is the health of their computer network system is greater than ever.

A computer network system is the backbone of almost every business as it facilitates communication, enables employees to share documents, files, data, software, and hardware, as well as preserves information and improves efficiency within a business. The health of a computer network system can be directly related to the capabilities of a business’s website and if that network is not performing at its peak then it can be expected that the website’s operational abilities will suffer.

The health of a computer network system can be compromised for a number of reasons but the most common is known as fragmentation. This computer disease targets the files that have been saved and stored on a network’s hard drive, causing the network to slow and affecting its reliability. As a progressive disease the damage caused by fragmentation continues to get worse as it goes untreated until inevitably it causes a network to crash, a catastrophic event for any business.

Operational websites rely on a business’s computer network system in that the files and software used to keep them running are accessible and reliable. When fragmentation takes hold of a network those files and software can become difficult to locate and may be damaged, making them useless and essentially ruining the integrity of a website.

This scenario will play out if fragmentation is not put in check because the computer disease is a natural process, a direct result of how a hard drive saves and stores files. When files are saved they are stored directly behind the last files saved, leaving no space between the two. Of course files on a network system are often opened, modified and resaved and this is where the problem of fragmentation comes in. Because the additional information increases the size of the modified file it will no longer fit in its original space on the hard drive, forcing the drive to cut the excess information and store it in the next available space.

The breaking of a file into pieces is fragmentation and there is no limit to how many times a file can be fragmented, meaning there could be hundreds if not thousands of pieces of a single file strewn across the hard drive. Every time that file is recalled it requires the hard drive to find all of those pieces, put them together, and then deliver them to the screen- a lengthy process as well as a heavy burden.

Fragmentation slows down the process of every action, regardless of what file you are trying to open, software you are trying to share, communication you are trying to send, etc. As a result a website takes a hit because it no longer has a reliable source for its operational needs. This becomes evident in a website’s speed as pages take longer to load, images may be missing, error pages may pop up; the list of problems is endless. This is all because fragmentation has not been addressed.

It doesn’t have to get this bad though and preventing such a mess is probably one of the easiest things a business can do. Companies like Diskeeper have developed defragmentation software that not only repairs fragmented files, reversing the damage caused by the disease, but also safeguards against future fragmentation.

Defragmentation software offers you the ability to restore the health of your computer network system, returning it its optimal speed and reliability and in turn improving the functionality of your website. With the holiday season now in high gear there really is little time for a business to wait, it’s evident that consumers are turning to the Internet for their shopping needs, now businesses need to turn to defragmentation software to facilitate those online shoppers.