These days, companies in Lodi count on reliable access to The Internet as the lifeblood of their organization. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The Internet.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on internet access.
The net has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the web is certainly ubiquitous. What do you need? Is a cable modem enough? Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point: what is right for your business in Lodi, California?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your organization must assess its needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the web? Is the web used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Are you hosting the data in Lodi, California and distant locations or offices rely on you?
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your business? How will the downtime affect your company? Is uptime essential to the success of your organization? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The Internet. Before you choose your broadband internet, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your company. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Companies in Lodi 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. Whether it is to talk to shippers, do research or place orders, access to The net is required.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the net during the same hours.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemWhen employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Are you performing routine backups? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you 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? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
Depending on your location, high-speed business Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Lodi. Providers have already wired these buildings. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
The introduction of Metro Ethernet into a new building can be quite costly. However, bringing that connection into office space within that building is usually less so. Also, securing high-speed access to The web using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or business premises? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three places?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various places?
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. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. 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. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during business hours. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some providers. In this case, your business 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.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the net can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
Providers 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.
Lodi has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
Try using redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. 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. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different providers. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Lodi. Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central organization spaces or data centers. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.
It is true that Internet access costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Please think about the following scenarios:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants 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. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Will you lose calls? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
You may be an accounting firm that shares databases, a retail chain company utilizing a point of sale system or a law practice sharing files. Regardless of the specifics, your office is the hub for your enterprise. All of your places, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, depend on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What happens if your circuit crashes? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Are remote offices able to work at all? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share essential data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Maybe your business depends entirely on the web. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. You are essentially out of business. 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? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
You have several different options to pick from. Your business needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. To summarize:
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 Internet circuit may be sufficient. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Mid-sized businesses in Lodi should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg 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.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of organization or offices. They need redundant circuits. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of providers and services for your business, you will benefit.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple providers as well as redundant hardware. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your company. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is 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. We are going to formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We’ll create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.