These days, companies in San Jose count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their organization. All companies depend on reliable and quick access to The web. This is true regardless of how large or small the business.
In the coming months and years, we’ll become increasingly reliant on our access to the web.
The web has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the net is certainly ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Does your San Jose, California company need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point?
Prior to selecting a service, your business must figure out its needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the web? Is it used to network with cloud servers? You may be hosting the data in San Jose, California and remote sites rely on this.
What happens to your organization if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? Will your organization suffer from the lull? Is your success reliant on uptime? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The net. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your company is imperative. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
Most companies in San Jose require that some or all of their workers have access to the net. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up organization information talk to third parties.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. 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 you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the web simultaneously.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.
Do you routinely backup? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Does your company use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? 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 company Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in San Jose that have already been wired by a carrier. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. 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.
Your business may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external places?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. If the internet 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 sites?
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the web. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. 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. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
There are providers who offer dedicated and even 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 business. The presence of numerous buildings and tenants should have no effect on your speed. You should receive full capacity of your circuits no matter what the time of day.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the internet can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
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 San Jose, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Try using redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
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. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit 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. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in San Jose. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. 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. In this way you have redundancy in different physical directions. If there is an event that causes a regional circuit problem, you have an alternative that is unaffected.
access to The net costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. Consider the following:
Your company is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your 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. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What about the quality of your calls? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
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. Whether you have 2 sites, 250, or 2000, they all count on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. What if your circuit fails? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Are your other offices able to do any work? Can they process transactions or new orders? 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 business so that your customers can access and communicate 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?
Maybe your company depends entirely on the net. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now officially out of business. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Can you truly rely on your providers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
You clearly have many options. Your business budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. In review:
If you are a small company, 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. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.
Mid-sized businesses in San Jose should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Companies with different locations, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. They require redundant circuits. Different providers are desirable. 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 access to The net circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. The right mix of providers and services will help keep your business up and running as efficiently as possible.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple carriers in addition to redundant hardware. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your 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 are going to 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 click here if you wish to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Alternatively, call our office to schedule an assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.