These days, companies in Mentor rely on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their business. The business functions of every company, whether it is a small business or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends on fast and reliable access to The Internet.
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 is the best solution for you? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Will your Mentor, Ohio business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The web or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your company must assess its needs. Perhaps the net is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is it used to network with cloud servers? Are you hosting the data in Mentor, Ohio 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 might the downtime cause problems for your company? Is uptime required? You must answer these questions before you buy.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The web. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. You will hear providers use terms like:
… focus on what matters: what does your company need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
For most companies in Mentor, some or all of the employees need access to the net. Internet access may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If you have many employees who need to use the web at the same time, you may do better with more.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemWhen they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.
Do you perform backups at your company? 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? This is how a file sharing service works: You save a file. Then the file is pushed to the cloud, and is then synchronized with other people’s computers. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
Are you interested in high-speed business 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 Mentor that have been previously wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
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. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Does your company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. 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 locations?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be adequate. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at 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. 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. 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 getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your organization only; no sharing. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
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.
Carriers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The carriers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Mentor, circuits do go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Consider redundant circuits.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
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. 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 there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct providers. 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. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. 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.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Mentor. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The net is greater. Consider the following:
If your organization utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your needs. What will happen to your phone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are calls 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. All of your locations, whether 2 or 2000, depend on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote places? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share information? 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 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 happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Your company is entirely Internet based. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. They are also unable to answer calls. Looks like you are now out of company. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are your current providers as dependable as you would like? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your choices will largely count on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your organization. In review:
If you are a small organization, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg access to The net circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. 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. 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 Mentor, Ohio; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. 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.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of company or offices. Redundancy is crucial. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. 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 providers.
To run efficiently and effectively, corporations and businesses that fall into this category must use point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits, gigabit Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet 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 need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
Our expert engineers will review 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 company running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.