These days, companies in Eden Prairie, Minnesota depend on reliable access to The web as the lifeblood of their company. All companies count on reliable and quick access to The web. This is true no matter how large or small the company.
Our reliance on access to the internet will become greater in the near and distant future.
From email to data sharing, video chat to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is ubiquitous. What is the right solution for your requirements? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? You may need Gigabit Internet. What does your Eden Prairie, Minnesota organization need? Does it require 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your organization really needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the web? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the web? You may be hosting the data in Eden Prairie and remote places rely on this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Before making a purchase, these are some of the questions that you must answer.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the internet. Before you choose your broadband, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your business. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
Companies in Eden Prairie, Minnesota need access to the web for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct company research or talk to clients.
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 more than that, you may need more.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Do you routinely backup? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize 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? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Are you interested in high-speed organization Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Eden Prairie that have been previously wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed Internet access may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. Also, securing high-speed access to The Internet using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Does your company 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? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct business. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied sites?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be sufficient. Company headquarters should have high-speed access to The Internet such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during company hours. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your organization. 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. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the internet.
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 Eden Prairie, Minnesota even though some carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. You get some protection, but also some risk.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different carriers. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. Should one carrier have some trouble that extends to a greater area and is out of your control, you are backed up with a different carrier.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. In this way you have redundancy in different physical directions. If there is an event that causes a regional circuit problem, you have an alternative that is unaffected.
access to The Internet costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The web is greater. Contemplate these scenarios:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? During business hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What about the quality of your calls? Will calls be cut-off? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail organization operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your locations whether you have two or two thousand. What will happen if your circuit crashes? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Are your other offices able to do any work? Process or take new orders? Circulate essential files and data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. You may operate a service like this: other systems talk to yours via an API to figure out freight prices, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
Maybe your business depends entirely on the net. 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. You are now, essentially, out of organization. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your providers? Are you using carriers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your business needs and your budget. To recap:
If you are a small company, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg access to The web circuit may be sufficient. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. 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 have a midsized company in Eden Prairie, Minnesota; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. 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.
Companies with different sites, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. They need redundant circuits. Having several providers would afford extra protection. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The web circuit providers before choosing the right one. The best mix of carriers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Your goal is to have hardware and circuits that are more than capable of providing support to a significant number of fast and simultaneous connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.
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 examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your company running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.