Over the past year we have helped a number of our clients reduce their costs and improve reliability by getting rid of premises-based servers in favor of hosted services (e.g. Drop Box for file sharing) and/or data center hosting for mission-critical vertical applications.

Once the servers go off site however, the office’s connection to the Internet becomes the “weak link in the chain.” Some clients attacked that link by swapping out their current Internet connection for a more enterprise-grade connection (e.g. SDSL or bonded T-1s), but that still represents a single point of failure. Other clients upgraded their router/firewall to a device that can load balance or failover between two simultaneously active Internet connections. So when the cable modem service is down, the router automagically switches over to the DSL connection — totally seamlessly to the end users. Some router/firewalls even allow you to use one of those Sprint/Verizon Wireless PC Cards traveling laptop users have for the office’s secondary Internet connection. Which mix of redundant connections to use is a complex matter, requiring careful analysis of not only your bandwidth usage as a whole, but the workflow processes utilized by your employees, customers, vendors and others with whom you connect over the Internet, even if only by email.

As the Commonwealth of Virginia has discovered, not having any redundant Internet connectivity, even when using so-called “bulletproof” network connections, is just not acceptable. (You can read the story here.)

Consequently, we find our clients’ businesses increasingly require a conversation about the merits and costs of redundant Internet connectivity. For increasing numbers of clients, redundant Internet connectivity is no longer a luxury; rather, it is very cheap insurance if not a necessity.

If you need help deciding if redundant Internet connectivity is appropriate for your business, please feel free to give us a call at (207) 772-5678.

Mark
CIO