Because of today’s environment, companies in Auburn, Washington rely on the web. Reliable access to the internet is the lifeblood of their business. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, depend on reliable and fast Internet access.
We will, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our Internet access.
The web has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the internet is certainly ubiquitous. What is the right solution to meet your needs? Can a cable modem suffice? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Your Auburn, Washington organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point but which one is best?
Prior to selecting a service, your company must figure out its needs. Perhaps the web is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the web? Perhaps you, in Auburn, are hosting the data and remote locations rely on this.
What will happen to your company if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? What about the downtime that results? Can your business afford that? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed Internet access. Choosing the correct broadband for your organization requires a cost benefit analysis. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
For most companies in Auburn, some or all of the employees need access to the internet. Whether it is for business research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the web is required.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. A smaller Internet circuit may be enough if you only have a handful of workers. Perhaps a 5 or 10 megabyte is all you need. If you have more than that, you may need more.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Does your organization regularly conduct backups? It is recommended that you do remote backups from every desk. If you are, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize the backup data to collect.
Google drive and DropBox are two popular sharing services. Are you using one of these or some other service that allows you to share files? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
Depending on your location, high-speed business Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Auburn that are already wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed Internet access may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Your organization may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several places?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the internet connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different locations, 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. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. The cable modem you subscribe to with the 30 Meg connections may not always reach those speeds, especially during the busiest or “peak” hours of the workday. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your business. 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.
For example, with Metro Ethernet, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in increments of five Meg circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 Meg circuits and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the internet can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.
Auburn, Washington has some carriers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different providers to bring in your circuits. Advanced routers and IP address allocations can be utilized to make it look to your users and the public that you have a single circuit. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Auburn, Washington. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would attached to the proper outside source whether a subterranean conduit or a telephone pole. They would be set up in different directions and would lead to different data centers or main office spaces. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
The cost of dependable access to The web pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Contemplate these situations:
If your organization utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. It is possible that during normal business hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Will you lose calls? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the hub of your enterprise: You might be a law practice that shares files, a retail operation that utilizes POS systems or a large accounting firm that needs to share databases. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote sites? Process new orders? Circulate essential files and data? Do you know what your organization needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to communicate with you to collect information and data. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
Your company is completely reliant on the web. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. No calls could be answered either. You are essentially out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Can you truly rely on your carriers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
You have several different options to pick from. Your business needs and budgets will drive your decisions. To summarize:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small organization with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single access to The web circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
You will need higher speed access to The Internet if you have a medium sized company in Auburn, Washington. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed access to The web circuits. Optimally, multiple providers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Availability and costs vary. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
Companies with multiple locations are most at risk for failure. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Different providers are desirable. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed Internet access circuit providers before choosing the right one. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your company.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. 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. Spikes or sudden increase in usage can result in Internet slowdowns or disruptions in service. You can decrease the risk of these events by having sufficient bandwidth. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
Our engineers can help. We will analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. You want your organization to run smoothly. We are going to look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.