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Economical and Effective Redundancy Solutions

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Many companies today rely heavily on Internet connections for data connections, Virtual Private Network (VPN) links or web access to critical sites. Operational processes are greatly affected if their circuit goes down or develops speed issues. At a minimum, this can cause wasted productivity. In extreme cases, it could result in lost revenue, lost clients or low customer satisfaction. 

Companies want to build redundancy in their circuit connections, however, tight budgets may not support the cost of two major internet connections. Even if costs were not an issue, true redundancy may not be achieved by simply having two different circuit providers due to the fact that most local connections are delivered over common paths into the building (the same entry points, same telephone pole and so on). In such a case, a storm or accident that takes out that access means both circuits are down and thereby defeats the redundancy initiative. Finally, bringing in two connections requires some fancy networking to allow inbound and outbound traffic to sync up seamlessly in the event of a failover scenario.

So what can be done to achieve redundancy without the high cost and inefficiency? Recent advances in telecom carrier solutions offer several options for small-to-medium-sized businesses.

Wireless Networks

Over the past few years, there have been significant improvements in wireless networks and the fact that carriers are constantly expanding coverage presents a clever, cost effective solution: Companies can have their primary connection (T-1, 10meg, etc.) and then purchase an inexpensive wireless connection at typically less than $100 per month. The wireless service is robust enough to be used as an emergency back-up, yet costs only a fraction of a typical primary circuit. 

Wireless provides another real benefit — no local loop! Therefore, a storm that takes out your local access typically will not affect the wireless link. Additionally, manufacturers such as Barracuda Networks and Sonicwall provide cost-effective appliances that will link two or more connections seamlessly. This takes out the complexity of programming the paths and routes, and makes deployment of this solution relatively easy.

These devices can be designed to route different traffic to specific connections. As an example, you may want your main business traffic to go out the primary circuit while standard Internet or non-critical data traffic routes out the low cost circuit. This will improve performance since you can reduce non priority traffic on your primary path which frees up critical bandwidth. In either case, the links failover to each other in the event of a circuit outage and alerts can be sent to appropriate individuals within your organization via email.

Cable and DSL

Cable and DSL options provide similar benefits to wireless: They are typically low cost and in many cases take a different path into the building to provide redundant access points. If your provider plans to use the same access path as your standard telecom demarcation, request that they use a different path if possible. Even if they charge additional installation fees for the diverse routing, the one-time cost may well be worth the advantage in redundancy.

Flexible Circuits

Finally, consideration may be given to flexible circuit options now offered by several carriers. Simply put, the carriers will install a circuit that has the potential to go, for example, 10Mbps, however they only set it for 1.5Mbps. In the event of a failure of the main circuit, the redundant carrier is called and their datacenter turns up the bandwidth to 10Mbps. This process can happen within minutes. This provides the cost benefit of a lower circuit for a backup, but when needed, it can quickly scale up to the faster speed. 

In this case, you most likely will pay a premium for the higher bandwidth when turned up, but given the fact that you are in an emergency situation, the additional cost is not as much as a concern at that point considering the alternative of being down. Once your primary circuit is back on line, you simply notify the redundant carrier to turn down the bandwidth back to the idle speed. Therefore you have only paid for the higher speed when you really needed it.

Improved Efficiency for Any Business

Even a small business can deploy redundancy now at a reasonably low cost and without a network engineer, as newer network appliances take the difficulty out of implementing the various solutions.

These are just a few of the ideas that companies are using to provide redundancy at economical prices. What cost-efficient redundancy solutions has your business used?

Frank Marro served as Regional Vice President responsible for sales management in Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus, Ohio. He also directed MCPc’s national carrier service program, which provides solutions for clients looking for voice, video and data circuits for WAN connectivity.