Trends
A current trend that is pervasive through the IT industry is the idea of a seamless, paperless office. One of the critical components of a competitive work-flow in any company that experiences both wide and thin margins is access to data and optimized productivity. That means connectivity, speed and reliability. Paper consumes a great deal of time and labor to organize, file and retrieve. Studies show that most office staff spend about one hour per month searching for and replacing files. Depending on the size of the company, a move to paperless can pay for itself within a month. A subset of this trend that cannot be over looked is the use of software as a service. Many applications can be made available from any computer or any device. There are no patches for customers to install making the software very user friendly. While many companies utilize third party services such as Drop Box, or even Google Docs, many companies would rather keep these documents, secure, in house. A well-designed network infrastructure that has the applicable requirements of the users is often well worth the financial sunk cost.

A solid network is considered one of the most critical resources in an organization, both in the private and public sector, especially with paperless transmission of business documents between companies. A solid network is the cornerstone for providing the means of transmitting data (sometimes sensitive), from one computer to another. The mission of any business is to offer a useful product, increase profits, and increase work force potential. Because of these possibilities networks may increase the organizational learning rate, which many business professionals believe is the only fundamental advantage in competition. The accuracy and speed of daily business transactions for large and small organizations are vital to their success. Unscheduled disruptions resulting in the failure to process these daily business transactions can be costly, and potentially disastrous. This essay will describe some of the possible gains, and drawbacks one may face when installing/upgrading a network.

Advantages
Employees want the ability to have access to all files, and services whenever needed. It is no surprise that our modern workplace is no longer bound to the office. It is a continuous workforce connected globally through the Internet via networks. The new virtual workplace is powered by routers/switches, mobile devices and cloud-based services. IT is challenged by our high mobility lifestyle to support every new mobile device and collaboration solution used by the remote worker including personal cell phones, tablets, laptops, etc. By keeping employees constantly informed of resources an ordinary group of people have the potential to transform into a high performance team. When a group is too large, communication is not effective with all of its members. Workers must be able to communicate quickly, and share ideas. The Internet has knocked down barriers to innovation globally. With universal access to technology, and resources innovation has accelerated substantially compared to just five years ago. For example someone in the US can build an application, and have their manager verify their progress while conducting business on another continent.
Disadvantages
Installing or upgrading a network can quickly become expensive depending on the customer’s requirements. Sometimes the service package helps justify the cost, but often the price displayed is for the equipment alone. When this is the case, the service package