In today’s world, South San Francisco, California companies need dependable access to The web. It is the lifeblood of their organization. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on internet access.
From video chat to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is everywhere you look. What solution bet fits your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point: what is right for your company in South San Francisco, California?
Prior to selecting a service, your company must figure out its needs. Perhaps the net is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the net? There may be remote sites that rely on you and you are hosting the data in South San Francisco, California.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your organization afford the downtime? Does your business require uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The web. Choosing the correct broadband for your organization requires a cost benefit analysis. While you are likely to hear some service providers toss around terms such as:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
Workers for most companies in South San Francisco have some need to access the net during the course of their job. It may be needed for company research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have more than that, you may need more.
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.
Are you regularly performing backups? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize your backup data.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Business high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in South San Francisco that have already been wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
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. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Does your company host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various places?
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. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
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. 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. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your business day. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your organization receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. 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.
With Metro Ethernet, for example, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in various increments including 5 and 10 Meg circuits, and 50 and 100 Meg circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the internet.
Here, providers deliver enough high-speed to the building, so that it can be split among various tenants. The carrier has the right amount so that everyone gets the contracted speed that has been promised.
Circuits can go down in South San Francisco even though certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Try using redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. You get some protection, but also some risk.
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. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in South San Francisco have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. 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 a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
The cost of dependable access to The Internet pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Contemplate these scenarios:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants 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. As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what happens to your needs? What will happen to your phone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
Your office may be the working center of an entire business enterprise. The kind of business does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your sites whether you have two or two thousand. What happens if your circuit goes down? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Is work even possible at your other places? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Circulate necessary data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your organization. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. You may operate a service like this: other systems communicate with yours via an API to figure out freight rates, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your organization servers. How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Is the internet integral to the proper function of your business? Do you rely on it entirely? Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Basically, you are out of company. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Can you truly rely on your carriers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You have no shortage of options. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. As a wrap-up:
Sometimes redundancy is not essential to you. For example, If you are a small business, with just one office location, a single access to The Internet circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in South San Francisco, California requires that you have higher-speed access to the internet. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple providers to provide and service different circuits. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. Your specific location will determine what options you have. Please speak with one of our experts to find out what those are and how we can meet your needs.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple locations. Redundancy is extremely vital to them. Varied providers are optimal. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed 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. 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.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. 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.
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 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.
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