The lifeblood of Campbell companies doing company in the current environment depends on reliable access to The Internet. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The use of the net is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What do you need? Will a cable modem be adequate? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Your Campbell company probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point but which one is best?
The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. 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? You may be hosting the data in Campbell and remote places rely on this.
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? How much downtime can your company withstand? Is uptime essential to the success of your organization? Before making a purchase, these are some of the questions that you must answer.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The web. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband that is correct for your company. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
For many, if not all, companies in Campbell, California, access to The web is needed for at least some employees. Whether it is for organization research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the net is required.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your company if you only have a few people working for you. If you have more than that, you may need more.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. 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.
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? This is how a file sharing service works: You save a file. Then the file is pushed to the cloud, and is then synchronized with other people’s computers. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
High-speed organization access to The Internet like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The Internet 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. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.
Does your business host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your organization headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different places?
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. Those people are not able to do their work if the net connection fails or is unreliable. Can your intranet solution support your needs? Can it support multiple simultaneous connections? Is it stable enough to handle this when they are from various places?
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the internet. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed access to The net is important. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. 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 companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. 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? If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some carriers offer. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your business. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
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. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your organization out to the internet, you can by using 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.
Campbell has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Try using redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. 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. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. 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 Campbell. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central organization spaces or data centers. Having redundancy in different physical directions can protect you if there is a serious incident at a data center or some accident that causes a regional circuit issue.
It is true that access to The net costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Consider the following:
Is your business on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting 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 accessible bandwidth decreases, what will happen to your needs? What will happen to your phone calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Are calls dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
Your office may be the working center of an entire organization enterprise. The kind of business does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your sites. This is true whether you have 3 places or 2000 locations. What will happen in the event of a circuit failure? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Is work even possible at your other sites? Process or take new orders? Dispense and receive data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all count on. Is an API utilized in your company so that your customers can access and talk to your system? What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
What if your organization could not function at all without the net? Maybe your business depends upon it completely. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Basically, you are out of organization. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
You clearly have several choices. Your company needs and budgets will drive your decisions. To recap:
Sometimes redundancy is not vital to you. For example, If you are a small business, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
You have a midsized company in Campbell, California; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Using different circuits and different providers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
If your organization has several locations or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. 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 right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your organization.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. It is essential to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
We have experts to help. Our engineers will do an analysis of your needs and requirements, and develop a free action plan for you based on their findings. 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 click here to complete the contact form on the right side of this page or call our office to schedule an appointment for an assessment. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.