In today’s environment, companies in Broken Arrow rely on reliable access to The net as the lifeblood of their organization. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The Internet.
access to The web will become increasingly important to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.
From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the internet is everywhere you look. What is the right solution to meet your requirements? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Does your business in Broken Arrow need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is the web primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the internet? Do remote sites count on you hosting the data in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma?
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your organization? Can your company afford the downtime? Is uptime required? Before buying, these are some of the questions that you must answer.
High-speed access to The Internet is required by all businesses. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your company. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
At most businesses including those in Broken Arrow, some or all employees need Internet access. It may be needed for organization research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. If you have more than that, you may need more.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Are you regularly performing backups? When you do remote backups from every workstation, which you should, you must support multiple and simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data.
Does your company use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
Are you interested in high-speed company Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Broken Arrow that have already been wired by a carrier. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your organization.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. Also, securing high-speed Internet access using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Do you have your own organization servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Are your business headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you a retail company with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different places, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. It is advisable that high-speed Internet access be available at the central company office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some providers offer. In this situation, you do not have to share bandwidth. The bandwidth is all yours and is fully allocated to the needs of your company. The presence of numerous buildings and tenants should have no effect on your speed. You should receive full capacity of your circuits no matter what the time of day.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Here, carriers deliver enough high-speed to the building, so that it can be split among various tenants. The carrier has the right amount so that everyone gets the contracted speed that has been promised.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma even though some carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. If that carrier has a wide reaching outage or there is a line broken or damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct providers is the second form of circuit redundancy. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple providers or circuits. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. Whether they are attached underground or to a telephone pole, your goal should be to have the circuits in different directions leading to different central locations. By doing this, if there is a significant problem such as a fire at a data center, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
Even though Internet access comes with a cost, you will save money if you make sure it is dependable. Unreliable access will end up costing you more in the long run. Think about the following situations:
Your business is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. During organization hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What about phone call quality? Will calls be cut-off? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your company. Whether you have 2 sites, 250, or 2000, they all rely on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Dispense and receive data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular company. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to speak with you to collect information and data. What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
Does your organization completely rely on the web? Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. They are also unable to answer calls. You are now, essentially, out of business. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your providers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You have several different options to pick from. Your business needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. To summarize:
If you are a small company, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg access to The Internet circuit may be adequate. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
If you have a midsized organization in Broken Arrow, you will need higher-speed Internet access. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Availability and costs vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. They require redundant circuits. Different carriers are desirable. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. It is crucial that not only your circuits have the ability to support a vast number of multiple and simultaneous connects, but your hardware must have the ability to support them as well.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your company needs. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We will examine your demand levels and current usage. We will then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run business.
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