Because of today’s environment, companies in Visalia, California depend on the internet. Reliable access to the net is the lifeblood of their company. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, count on reliable and fast access to The net.
In the coming months and years, we’ll become increasingly dependent on our access to the net.
From video chat to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is everywhere you look. What is the best fix to meet your requirements? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may be required. Does your Visalia business need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your company must assess its needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the net? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting the data in Visalia that remote sites depend upon?
Have you thought about what happens to your organization if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The web. Deciding on the right broadband internet is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
For most companies in Visalia, California, some or all of the employees need access to the internet. Internet access may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
The best solution may rely on how many employees you have. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If you have many employees who need to use the net at the same time, you may do better with 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, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Are you performing routine backups? 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.
Google drive and DropBox are two popular sharing services. Are you using one of these or some other service that allows you to share files? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of 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. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Visalia, California. Carriers have already wired these buildings. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The net may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
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. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Consider whether your business hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Are your organization headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office places?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different locations?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many 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. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and 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 organization. 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.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your organization out to the internet, 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.
Realistically, while some carriers in Visalia, California offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
Redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different carriers. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Visalia that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get 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. 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.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Consider the following:
Your organization is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. It is possible that during normal business hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Will calls be cut-off? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
Your office may be the working center of an entire company enterprise. The kind of organization 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. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. What if your circuit fails? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they process transactions or new orders? Circulate essential files and data? Do you know what your business needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and hundreds of customers. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Is the web integral to the proper function of your company? Do you rely on it entirely? Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. You are now, essentially, out of organization. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Are your carriers sufficiently reliable? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. In review:
If your company is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte access to The Internet circuit may suffice. 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. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.
You have a midsized company in Visalia; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed access to The web circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Companies with different sites, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundant circuits are essential. Varied providers are optimal. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. Your business can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your organization. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your company needs. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your organization requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we’ll generate a cost effective plan that provides your organization with the resources it needs.
You can complete the contact form on the right side of this page by clicking here. If you would prefer, please call our office to set up an appointment for an assessment. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.