What to Do When Problems Occur

When problems do occur, all of the information mentioned in the previous section will stand you in good stead. But even if you are in possession of this information, you are going to need to work fast to gather facts relating to the issue.

The first thing that you should do is ascertain exactly what has gone wrongestablish what the facts are. Find out whether any changes have been made to the network and, if so, what. If possible, try to talk to people directly involved with any changes; secondhand information might not always be as reliable as you would like.

Also, if it becomes apparent during the troubleshooting process that there are multiple issues involved, be sure that you tackle one problem at a time. Any attempt to tackle multiple issues at one time usually just leads to confusion and may even make the situation worse.