Because of today’s environment, companies in Menifee, California depend on the web. Reliable access to the net is the lifeblood of their company. Fast and reliable Internet access is needed for businesses to function properly; large corporations and small businesses alike.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on internet access.
From email to data sharing, video conferencing to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the Internet is ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. You may need Gigabit Internet. Will your Menifee organization needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The web or 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
Prior to selecting a service, your business must figure out its needs. Why will you need the net? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the net? Are you hosting the data in Menifee, California that remote locations rely upon?
Have you thought about what happens to your company if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? How much downtime can your organization withstand? Is uptime essential? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The Internet. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your organization. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
At any company in Menifee some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the web if they are to properly perform their job duties. Third party applications, company research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the net may be needed.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. 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. If your company has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the internet at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Does your business regularly conduct 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.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to 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 company access to The web, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. “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. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed Internet access in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Consider whether your organization hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. 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?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various sites?
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. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. 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. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. 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?
Some providers offer customers 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. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits 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. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your business out to the web, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Carriers 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.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Menifee, California, problems arise and circuits can fail. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many 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. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers to bring in your circuits. 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. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. In the event a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Menifee, California. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. 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. 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.
access to The Internet costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The Internet is greater. Consider these scenarios:
Your organization is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. During your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Are the calls going to be dropped? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
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. All of your places, whether 2 or 2000, depend on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What happens if your circuit goes down? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? What about new orders? Disseminate needed information and data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. 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. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems speak with yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your company servers. If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
What if your company could not function at all without the internet? Maybe your company relies on it completely. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? They are also unable to answer calls. You are now, essentially, out of business. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your company needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. 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 access to The web circuit may suffice. Gigabit service and Metro Ethernet options seem expensive. If you are in a lit building, however, they can be less than you think. Look into it. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Menifee, need higher speed Internet access. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous 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. Availability and costs vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
Companies with multiple locations are most at risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. The right mix of providers and services will help keep your company up and running as efficiently as possible.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. 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 risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. We are going to examine your demand levels and current usage. We are going to then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run company.
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.