In today’s environment, companies in Petaluma count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable access to The Internet.
We will, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our Internet access.
The Internet is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the net is everywhere. What is the best solution for you? Is a cable modem sufficient? Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Will your Petaluma company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Is the web only used for web surfing and email? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting data in Petaluma? Do remote locations depend upon you?
Have you thought about what happens to your organization if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? How might the downtime cause problems for your company? Does your business require uptime? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed access to The web. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband that is correct for your company. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Petaluma, California, access to The net is needed for at least some employees. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct business research or talk to clients.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. 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 internet during the same hours.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Do you backup information? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
High-speed organization access to The Internet like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Petaluma that are already wired by a carrier. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
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, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the net with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends 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? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. If the net connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various locations?
For one office or a small business with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. 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 companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Other providers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your business out to the net, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
In these cases, the carriers deliver high-speed to the building in sufficient quantity that they can then split their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing each tenant is receiving their contracted speeds.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Petaluma, problems arise and circuits can fail. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Redundant circuits.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. 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. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. 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 providers or circuits. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different providers that have different pathway in Petaluma. 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. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
Although Internet access comes at a price, the price of unreliable access to The web is tremendous. Please think about the following scenarios:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are company that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will the calls be choppy?
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. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your places. This is true whether you have 3 sites or 2000 sites. What if your circuit fails? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share essential data? 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. Is an API utilized in your company so that your customers can access and speak with your system? It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
What if your business could not function at all without the net? Maybe your business relies on it completely. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. Your company is basically done with. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are your providers sufficiently reliable? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You have no shortage of options. Your organization budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. As a high-level summary:
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 Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. 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. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
If you have a midsized organization in Petaluma, California, you will need higher-speed access to The web. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. Using different circuits and different providers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of business or offices. Redundancy is crucial. Different providers are desirable. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers before choosing the right one. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your organization run as efficiently as possible.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is crucial to ensuring uptime. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. You want your organization to run smoothly. We will look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.
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