In today’s environment, companies in Merced count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. The company functions of every company, whether it is a small business or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, relies on fast and reliable access to The web.
In the coming months and years, we will become increasingly dependent on our access to the net.
The Internet is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the web is everywhere. What solution bet fits your needs? Is a cable modem enough? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet? What does your Merced organization need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
The needs of your particular organization must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the web? Is it used to network with cloud servers? Do remote locations depend on you hosting the data in Merced, California?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How will the downtime affect your business? Is uptime required? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed Internet access. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
Companies in Merced, California 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 communicate with shippers, do research or place orders, Internet access is required.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the net at the same time.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. If your business functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Are you performing routine backups? You may need to support simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which is advisable, this will be important.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
High-speed organization Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Merced, California that have already been wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The Internet may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. 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 organization 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? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external locations?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the net connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. 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 sufficient. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. You may experience slow downs. For example, although you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty Meg connection, it can be difficult to maintain the maximum speed during busy times and peak hours. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. 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? Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Other carriers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your organization only; no sharing. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.
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.
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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Merced, California, circuits do go down. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
The answer is redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. 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. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Merced, California please consider the following question: Do the providers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. 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 access to The Internet costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Contemplate these situations:
If your organization utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. During organization hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your requirements. What will happen to your phone calls? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
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 locations, 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 goes down? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? What will happen to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Share information? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. What if you are a software company? Perhaps you are running a hosted solution and it must be used by multiple customers; maybe even hundreds. 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 organization is 100% reliant on the web to properly function. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are essentially out of business. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Are your providers sufficiently reliable? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your organization needs and budgets will drive your decisions. Essentially:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small business with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single access to The Internet circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. 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.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized organization in Merced, California. 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. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of company or offices. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. The best mix of carriers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple providers in addition to redundant hardware. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your business. 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.
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’ll formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We will create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
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. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.