Why Do I Need Internet Redundancy?

What is Internet Redundancy?

Let’s face it. Modern businesses cannot function at all without the internet and the need goes beyond ensuring online customers are taken care of. It’s about ensuring that your business keeps on running every day; even a few hours of downtime can result in the loss of millions of dollars. As IT demands increase, so too will the need for reliable solutions. This is where Internet Redundancy can help you remain updated.

This is basically a business fail-safe or a backup internet service that will act as the spare in case your business suffers a network outage. If your primary connection shuts down, this will kick in and ensure your business and employees remain connected to the internet. Internet Redundancy services also come in several shapes and forms depending on delivery options, price and speeds they are available in.

How to Create and Maintain Network Redundancy

One of the first steps you need to take care of when creating network redundancy (especially a WAN) is to create a project plan that can enable you to analyze your existing infrastructure. This should be planned in a way to make it redundant and to deploy it but set it up for testing for operational success before finalizing. Even the slightest mistake can result in losses the likes of which can bring your business to its knees. Once tests come out positive, the final step will be administering policies and procedures that can allow you to monitor its progress and remain alert when you are faced with system failures. Timely notifications can allow you to take action before the damage takes hold.

Typically, a company’s security policy, recovery plans, incident response plan, etc are different aspects of such of solutions. However, that does not mean you should not test it. If the main link fails because of an oversight in design, you might be faced with one of several issues that cannot repair themselves without the need of manual intervention.

In other words, when you are incorporating redundancy into your systems, you have to take action immediately even if you receive messages from the network that imply everything went according to plan. An after-action report can help you verify how you can fix things or redesign the infrastructure then test it again till. Repeat this process until you get a positive result and then re-administer it in your network.

Constant analysis is the key to a consistent and quality redundancy plan. Since all networks are unique, each has its own requirements that should be taken into account during the design phase. This is why you need to take note of not only the common factors that will need redundancy, but also the solutions that you might not have given a second thought. This includes an analysis of the mainframe access and the core site since this is where the majority of your resources are located or where most of your business communications come to an end.

Multi WAN Traffic Shaping, How Does It Work?

Most organizations have to contend with employees who like nothing more than wasting time on social media. Streaming videos in YouTube and Facebook are a personal favorite but since they do it mostly during breaks, most businesses turn a blind eye to them. However, they may be sucking up all the bandwidth which your productive employees need to complete important projects resulting in delays and more work after hours.

If you count yourself as one of those frustrated business owners, then the best thing you can do is incorporate Multi Wan traffic shaping  into your in-house network.

What is Multi WAN Traffic Shaping?

Multi WAN Traffic Shaping refers to a process that most companies utilize to optimize the speed of their network. This basically allows them to allocate bandwidth to certain specific business centric applications that require the internet the most.

The technique will allow network administrators to redirect bandwidth to appropriate apps and decrease it from those that are not typically used or are harmful for productivity. In other words, critical tasks will not come to a standstill just because your employees don’t have access to appropriate amounts of bandwidth.

The bandwidth is assigned by basing it on an IP address, application, protocol, network or port after the network administrator determines who in your company requires the most bandwidth and who can get by with less or mediocre amounts.  This will be done after an analysis of the type of traffic that comes through via throttling, queuing or allocation. These are as follows:

Throttling – A particular kind of traffic that comes through is decreased by the network administrator and this will be based on the available packets on the interface within a specific period of time.

Queuing – During this technique the network administrator allocates traffic in separate queues and they empty it in order of relevance or need.

Allocation – As the name implies, the administrator assigns or allocates a certain amount of bandwidth to one type of traffic and another set to different types of traffic. This eliminates chances of downtime and accelerates productivity.

Then there is dynamic shaping which allows administrators to actually change how the different Multi WAN Traffic Shaping methods are utilized. This information is extracted when the admin acquires a real time report of the traffic that is moving throughout his website which tells him what the traffic flow is like. By analyzing the report he can adjust the traffic to fit the needs of the company either manually or through a device that follows the general rules that have been laid out by the administrator of the network.

If your business is suffering because of a loss in productivity then chances are your employees are wasting their time on social media and online videos. Besides allowing you to pinch off bandwidth where it is not needed or is being exploited, you can shape it according to the needs of business critical applications and save your business money at the same time.  

What is MPLS Offloading?

MPLS, short for Multi-Protocol Label Switching, is a computing approach used by organizations to improve the quality and speed of critical network applications.  MPLS offloading takes lower priority traffic (like web, email, etc) and forwards it over Internet-based VPNs instead of the more expensive MPLS connections.   This allows companies to reduce the size and/or bandwidth needs of their MPLS links and reduces overall costs.  Offloading can be done across high bandwidth but relatively inexpensive broadband Internet circuits.

How does it Work?

MPLS offloading take certain data traffic, which would normally go across the MPLS circuit, and re-routes that traffic over a broadband Internet VPN, thus reducing costs and eliminating the need to have to upgrade an existing MPLS circuit.

Making MPLS offloading part of the equation streamlines the entire process of sending and receiving data. By separating the traffic according to their importance, MPLS offloading is able to increase internet speed for the organization.

Cost Effective

One of the major gains that a company can have by integrating MPLS offloading to their IT infrastructure has to do with its cost effectiveness. According to reports, MPLS offloading can reduce a company’s cost by up to 8% annually.

Increases Network Speed

MPLS offloading can increase the network speed, making employees more productive. Since the speeds are increased due to MPLS offloading, employees also do not have to put up with unnecessary delays, which more often than not is the cause of work not getting done on time. In short, MPLS offloading allows companies to carry out all of their internet functions without having to be worried about the amount of bandwidth a particular application is using in order to get the task done.

Universal Support

MPLS offloading works well in multiple locations. The technology allows each office to use a majority of the bandwidth towards carrying out a vital operation. For example, there are no delays whenever one office needs to send any important information over the internet to another office because MPLS offloading streamlines the entire process.

Keeps Your Network Running

By using MPLS offloading, companies nowadays no longer need to worry about their internet slowing down whenever they have to carry out an important task like sending out important emails or other crucial data. In a nutshell, MPLS offloading ensures continuous internet connectivity.

Ending Note

Businesses have become more competitive than ever and the growing use of technology means that only companies that adapt can survive and thrive. MPLS offloading can be used to jumpstart both small and large businesses by taking care of all of their technological needs. The key to increasing productivity is in an increased bandwidth, and MPLS offloading can help you get there.

What is an SD-WAN?

There are very few technologies out there that have the potential to change the way we work and make indelible impacts on businesses in significant ways. SD-WAN or Software Defined Networking is one of them. This technology is basically the entire intelligence behind routing and switching. In addition data movements and digital voice traffic is confined within the software but removed from hardware that is responsible for controlling network traffic.

What does Software Defined Network have to do with it?

This might seem like a very small change; all you have to do is move the entire routing and switching system from its original position. In other words, you are altering the intelligence as such, just relocating it. However, this small difference has massive consequences; it allows you to virtualize the functions of the network intelligence which in turn allows you to achieve a number of things. For one thing, you can swap intelligent routers and switches across your network with simpler ones that are easier to operate and without the need of other functions that are present in the devices.

Doing this can simplify configuration which basically means that it will allow you to use cost effective devices. One other advantage of software defined networking is that it can also provide a centralized location for:

ü  Switching tables and intelligence

ü  Routing

ü  Easing administration overhead

ü  Move network intelligence from hardware to software

Besides ease of access, the switching networks this way allows more flexibility as well as consolidation. All alterations are applied in a single central location but perhaps the best benefit of this is the way it supports virtual environments and businesses. With cloud based technology, private and public, enterprises could transform the way they operate by creating flexible solutions to meet their requirements and can even add, remove and adjust new elements in their infrastructure without disruption and according to demand.

Software defined networking allowed network and virtual environments to integrate with each other which was not possible before. Doing this allows the network to adjust according to demands as and when they crop up.

However, the software benefits more than just the environment it is in. It also has significant value when it comes to networking in wider networking. SD-WAN provides businesses more configuration options for not only the devices utilized in their network, but the entire network itself. In other words, using SD-WAN businesses can use different networks that they did not have access to before. For instance, in a traditional network, users could forward traffic over a number of different networks. In short, they can send important traffic over a MPLS network and less important traffic over a wireless one which is comparatively inexpensive.

Some technologies based on SD-WAN can take this on a whole different level via algorithmic nodes which can be integrated as an application type function. If these can be integrated into software, the benefits will literally be endless.

Besides small businesses, SD-WAN setups are also highly beneficial for medium sized businesses which more often than not lack the in-house IT networking that could manage their infrastructure.