In today’s environment, companies in San Ramon, California rely on reliable access to The web as the lifeblood of their business. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable access to The web.
We are going to become increasingly reliant on Internet access as the months and years progress.
The use of the internet is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What do you need? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Gigabit Internet? Does your business in San Ramon need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your organization. Is the net primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the internet? Do remote locations count on you hosting the data in San Ramon, California?
What happens to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? What about the downtime that results? Can your business afford that? Is uptime essential to the success of your organization? Before making a purchase, these are several of the questions that you need to answer.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed Internet access. When choosing the right broadband internet for organization, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
Companies in San Ramon 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. access to The web 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. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the internet simultaneously.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you performing backups? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive 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. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in San Ramon, California that have already been wired by a carrier. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a building. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the internet with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or organization premises? Is your main company office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different sites?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. Those people are not able to do their work if the web connection fails or is unreliable. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied sites?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be sufficient. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The net including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. 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. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during business hours. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your company. 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.
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. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the internet.
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.
Realistically, while some providers in San Ramon offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in San Ramon, California. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. 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.
access to The net costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The net is greater. Contemplate these scenarios:
Is your business on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? 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 available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What about the quality of your calls? Are calls lost or dropped? Will they be full of static?
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. Every single one of your offices, stores and locations rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. What happens in the event of a circuit failure? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they process transactions or new orders? Share essential data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to speak with you to collect information and data. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their organization elsewhere?
Maybe your organization depends entirely on the net. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. No calls could be answered either. You are now, essentially, out of organization. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are your providers sufficiently reliable? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your company. Essentially:
If your organization is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte Internet access circuit may suffice. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. 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 companies with a single office in San Ramon, California, need higher speed Internet access. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most 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. To repeat, availability and prices vary. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
Companies with different places, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Varied providers are optimal. 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 Internet circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your organization run as efficiently as possible.
Gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits must be utilized by companies in any of these categories. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. 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. Your goal is to have hardware and circuits that are more than capable of providing support to a significant number of fast and simultaneous connections.
Your business faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your business up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please click here to complete the contact form on the right side of this page or call our office to schedule an appointment for an assessment. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.