The lifeblood of Vallejo companies doing business in the current environment depends upon reliable access to The net. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The Internet.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The net has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video conferencing, the web is certainly ubiquitous. How can your needs be met? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Metro Ethernet? 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 business in Vallejo?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your company really needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the web? Is real time data connection with cloud servers vital to your company? Are you hosting data in Vallejo, California? Do remote locations rely on you?
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Will your company suffer from the lull? Is uptime essential to the success of your company? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the web. Deciding on the right broadband internet is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
For most companies in Vallejo, some or all of the employees need access to the net. Third party applications, organization research or development and e-commerce are just a few of the ways the internet may be needed.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. 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 your business has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the internet at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemIf your organization functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Do you perform backups at your company? 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 like Google drive or DropBox? 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.
You may consider high-speed company access to The web if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Vallejo, California. Carriers have already wired these buildings. 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 internet 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? 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?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various sites?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be sufficient. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed access to The net is important. While fast access to The Internet is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your company day. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
Some carriers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth 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.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
In these scenarios, carriers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Vallejo, California, circuits do go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Try using redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at 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. However, if that carrier has a greater outage to your entire region or there is a line damaged outside of your office building, you may have both or all circuits go down. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different carriers. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Vallejo have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. 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. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.
The cost of dependable access to The Internet pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Consider the following:
Is your business on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? 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? As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what happens to your phone calls? What about phone call quality? Are calls dropped? Will you sound muffled?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail company operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your places. This is true whether you have 3 locations or 2000 places. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote sites? Process or take new orders? Disseminate needed information and data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software company is running. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to communicate with yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping rates or other information. What will happen when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Maybe your company depends entirely on the web. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. No calls could be answered either. You are now, essentially, out of organization. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
Clearly, there are many choices. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. Essentially:
Sometimes redundancy is not essential to you. For example, If you are a small organization, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
Mid-sized businesses in Vallejo, California should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and 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 organization or offices. Redundancy is extremely essential to them. Varied providers are optimal. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The best mix of carriers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
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. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. 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.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your business. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We will formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We will create something cost effective that gives you the resources your company needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.