In today’s environment, companies in Cupertino rely on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their business. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast access to The net.
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 email to data sharing, video conferencing to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the Internet is ubiquitous. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem sufficient? It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point: what is right for your business in Cupertino, California?
The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the web? Is real time data connection with cloud servers important to your business? You may be hosting the data in Cupertino and remote locations rely on this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? How much downtime can your business withstand? Is uptime essential to the success of your organization? You must answer these questions before you buy.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed access to The net. When choosing the right broadband for organization, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
Companies in Cupertino, California need access to the net for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. It may be needed for company 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. 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. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the net during the same hours.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
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.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. 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 web such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. These can usually be found in Cupertino in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
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 Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Does your business host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Maybe your organization requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different sites?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. If the web connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. 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 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. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during organization hours. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. 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. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
In these cases, the carriers deliver high-speed to the building in sufficient quantity that they can then split their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing each tenant is receiving their contracted speeds.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Cupertino even though some carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?
Try using redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. You get some protection, but also some risk.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct carriers. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as 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 provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Cupertino that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. 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. 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.
It is true that access to The web costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Please consider these situations:
Your business is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. During the course of a regular work day, any or all of these other businesses might be performing massive file downloads. Tenants might be taking a large volume of calls or be regularly streaming video. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Are calls dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
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. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your places whether you have two or two thousand. What if your circuit fails? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share essential information with anyone? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular company. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and 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 other systems can’t connect to your office servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Does your company completely rely on the net? No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. You are now, essentially, out of organization. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You clearly have several choices. The needs and budget of your business will both affect your choices. To summarize:
If your organization is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte Internet access circuit may suffice. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.
You have a midsized company in Cupertino; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Availability and costs vary. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Companies with different sites, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. They need redundant circuits. Multiple carriers would be great. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your organization run as efficiently as possible.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your organization. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
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. We are going to formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We will create something cost effective that gives you the resources your organization needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
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.