The lifeblood of Palm Coast, Florida companies doing company in the current environment depends on reliable access to The web. The organization functions of every company, whether it is a small company or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends on fast and reliable access to The web.
We will, in the months and years ahead, become more and more dependent on our access to The Internet.
The net is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video conferencing, the web is everywhere. What do you need? Will a cable modem be sufficient? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Does your organization in Palm Coast need one of these: 10 Meg access to The web, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. 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? Perhaps you, in Palm Coast, Florida, are hosting the data and remote sites rely upon this.
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Does your company require uptime? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. Choosing the correct broadband for your company requires a cost benefit analysis. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear providers throw out words and phrases like:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
Companies in Palm Coast, Florida 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 for business research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the web is required.
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 50 employees who are using the internet simultaneously, you may need more.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. If your business functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Does your organization regularly conduct 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.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
High-speed organization Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. These can usually be found in Palm Coast, Florida in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
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. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or company premises? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Is your business retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct organization. Those people are not able to do their work if the internet connection fails or is unreliable. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different places, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. It is advisable that high-speed access to The net be available at the central company office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse 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. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some carriers. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
Providers 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.
While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Palm Coast, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit redundancy. 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. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Palm Coast, Florida. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. 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.
Even though Internet access comes with a cost, you will save money if you make sure it is dependable. Unreliable access will end up costing you more in the long run. Consider these scenarios:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what will happen to your phone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will you sound muffled?
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, whether 2 or 2000, count on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What will happen if your circuit crashes? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Can they take or process any orders at all? Circulate essential files and data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick 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. Is an API utilized in your organization so that your customers can access and communicate with your system? What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Is the web integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you count on it entirely? If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Basically, you are out of company. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are the carriers 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?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your organization needs and your budget. To recap:
If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller access to The net circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Palm Coast, Florida, need higher speed access to The net. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits are essential. Having several providers would afford extra protection. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. 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. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your business run as efficiently as possible.
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 must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. Spikes or sudden increase in usage can result in Internet slowdowns or disruptions in service. You can decrease the risk of these events by having sufficient bandwidth. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
Your business faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
Our engineers can help. We’ll analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will 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 business.
Please click here if you wish to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Alternatively, call our office to schedule an assessment. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.