In today’s world, Beaverton companies need dependable access to The web. It is the lifeblood of their company. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast access to The Internet.
Our dependence on access to The web will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the net is omnipresent. What is the right solution to meet your needs? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Do you need Metro Ethernet? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Your Beaverton, Oregon organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, 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 net 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 internet? Are you hosting the data in Beaverton, Oregon that remote sites rely upon?
Have you thought about what happens to your company if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? How much downtime can your business withstand? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband that is correct for your organization. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
For most companies in Beaverton, some or all of the employees need access to the web. Third party applications, organization research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the net may be needed.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. If you have many employees who need to use the internet at the same time, you may do better with more.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. When they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.
Do you backup information? 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.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
Organization high-speed access to The net may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Beaverton 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.
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. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The Internet 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? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several sites?
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. If the web connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. 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.
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the net. A cable modem may also be sufficient in this situation. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. 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. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
There are carriers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your organization only; no sharing. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
As an example, look at Metro Ethernet. They provide guaranteed bandwidth in various increments. You can receive guaranteed bandwidth in increments of 100, 50, 10 and 5 megabytes. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Carriers 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 Beaverton, Oregon, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. 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 offering some protection, it is not without risk.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers to bring in your circuits. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Beaverton please consider the following question: Do the providers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. Contemplate these scenarios:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what will happen to your phone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled?
Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. Whether you have 2 places, 250, or 2000, they all rely on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. What happens if your circuit crashes? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Are your other offices able to do any work? Can they process transactions or new orders? Circulate necessary data? Do you know what your company needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems communicate with yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What will happen when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
Is the web integral to the proper function of your business? Do you rely on it entirely? No calls can go out if your circuits fail. They are also unable to answer calls. You are essentially out of business. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using carriers that are truly reliable? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
You clearly have many options. Your company needs and budgets will drive your decisions. In review:
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 Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Because prices can vary based on the location of your organization and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
You have a midsized company in Beaverton, Oregon; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. Your specific location will determine what options you have. Please speak with one of our experts to find out what those are and how we can meet your needs.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple sites. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Different providers are desirable. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers also and make an informed decision. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your business run as efficiently as possible.
Gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits must be utilized by companies in any of these categories. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is important to ensuring uptime. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your business. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We’ll then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your business up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.