formance or Capacity Increasing performance is rarely a bad thing. The exception might be improving per- formance where no increase is necessary. Remote branches with 10 users probably don't need ASA 5580 firewalls capable of a gigabit of throughput. Maxim #3 On the other hand, devices that are near their limits will soon become problems if normal growth continues. Telecom links that are running in excess of 70 percent uti- lization should be upgraded. Routers, switches, and firewalls that are regularly running at more than 50 percent CPU utilization should be considered for replacement with larger devices. VoIP is an excellent example of how performance bottlenecks can be serious. If your gateways can only support 50 concurrent calls, and you suddenly become busy due to growth and start dropping customer service calls, you can bet that the money will be found to upgrade those gateways SO they can support more calls. The smarter engineers will watch the network and spot trends. If you can quantify a trend that will translate into a required upgrade in the next budgetary cycle, you will be very well received, because the change can be planned for and budgeted for ahead of time. Remember, managers don't like surprises. Try to spot these opportunities be- fore there's a problem. Telling your boss the network should be improved after an outage has occurred will not make you a hero. Increase Reliability Chassis-based switches are more reliable than 1 RU access switches. Why? Because they usually have dual power supplies and can often support dual processors. Reliability is an important consideration in any network design. Reliable components such as chassis-based switches are usually more expensive than their less reliable counterparts, though, SO smaller companies usually do not employ them. As smaller companies grow into midsize and larger companies, however, they often discover that unplanned outages cost them more money than they would have spent on more reliable equipment. At this point, they start to spend money