These days, companies in Aventura count on reliable access to The net as the lifeblood of their organization. The company functions of every company, whether it is a small business or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, relies on fast and reliable access to The net.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on access to the net.
From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is everywhere you look. What do you need? Is a cable modem sufficient? Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your Aventura company need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point?
The needs of your particular organization must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Why will you need the web? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is it used to network with cloud servers? Do remote places count on you hosting the data in Aventura?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Will your company suffer from the lull? Does your company require uptime? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
High-speed Internet access 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 organization. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… focus on what matters: what does your company need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
At any company in Aventura some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the internet if they are to properly perform their job duties. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up company information talk to third parties.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the web simultaneously.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Do you perform backups at your company? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed company access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Aventura that have been previously wired by a carrier. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
If you have to bring Metro Ethernet into a new building, it can be expensive but bringing that connection to an office or suite within the building is usually not. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The web in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Consider whether your business hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Is your organization retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external places?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different sites, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a business with a single office that needs to surf the web. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The web including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some providers. In this case, your company receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
Providers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The providers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
While certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Aventura, Florida, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. 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 is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit redundancy. You may want your circuits to appear and act as if they are one and come from the same source. If so you can use IP address allocations and advanced routers to do so. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. In the event a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different providers that have different pathway in Aventura. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. 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.
Even though access to The net 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. Please consider these situations:
Is your organization on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? 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. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are calls dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
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 business. Whether you have 2 places, 250, or 2000, they all rely on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. What will happen if your circuit crashes? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Are remote offices able to work at all? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share information? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems talk to yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your business servers. Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Maybe your company depends entirely on the internet. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. Looks like you are now out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your choices will largely count on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your business. As a wrap-up:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small business with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single access to The Internet circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Costs vary with location and the availability of circuits so speak with our engineers. Together, we can find the best option for you and your business.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized organization in Aventura. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
Companies with multiple locations are most at risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Having several providers would afford extra protection. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. Your company can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
For businesses that fit this description, it is essential to have gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your business requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!You want your company to run smoothly. We will 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 complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.