The lifeblood of Glenview companies doing organization in the current environment depends on reliable access to The net. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The Internet.
access to The web will become increasingly important to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on access to The net will only grow as time goes on.
The net is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the internet is everywhere. What do you need? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Metro Ethernet? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Will your Glenview organization needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Prior to selecting a service, your business must figure out its needs. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is it used to network with cloud servers? Are you hosting the data in Glenview, Illinois and distant places or offices rely on you?
Have you thought about what happens to your business if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? How might the downtime cause problems for your company? How much uptime is essential to your organization? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. Deciding on the right broadband internet is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Glenview, Illinois, Internet access is needed for at least some employees. Third party applications, company research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the net may be needed.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the net simultaneously.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you regularly performing 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.
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 people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to other people’s computers. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Depending on your location, high-speed business Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Glenview, Illinois that have been previously wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
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. Did you know that obtaining high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Your business may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. If the web connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different places?
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a company with a single office that needs to surf the web. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. 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. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some carriers offer. In this case, your organization receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
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. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the net.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
Circuits can go down in Glenview, Illinois even though certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
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. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. You get some protection, but also some risk.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different providers to bring in and establish your circuits. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple carriers or circuits. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Glenview have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. By doing this, if there is a significant problem such as a fire at a data center, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
access to The Internet costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The net is greater. Consider the following:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? It is possible that during normal organization hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your requirements. What will happen to your phone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Are the calls going to be dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
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. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your locations. This is true whether you have 3 places or 2000 places. What if your circuit fails? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share essential information with anyone? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your business. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Is an API utilized in your business so that your customers can access and talk to your system? What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
Is the internet integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you rely on it entirely? If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. Basically, you are done. 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. Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You clearly have many options. Your choices will largely rely on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your company. To summarize:
If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller access to The web circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
You have a mid-sized Glenview, Illinois company; higher speed access to The web required. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different carriers. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
Businesses with many locations face the greatest risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely essential to them. Multiple carriers would be great. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. 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.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple carriers and redundant hardware for your system. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. It is crucial that not only your circuits have the ability to support a vast number of multiple and simultaneous connects, but your hardware must have the ability to support them as well.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers can help. We are going to analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your organization running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
You can complete the contact form on the right side of this page by clicking here. If you would prefer, please call our office to set up an appointment for an assessment. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.