Tech Tip * April 26, 2016
Failure is Not An Option… but Fail-over Is!
Every business, from the sole proprietor to the Fortun
e 50 enterprise, now must have some need for the Internet. But what happens when your single connection goes awry? Usually a slight blip for the big guys, but in the small business world it could be crippling. Failure is painful, but fail-over is a savior.
Fail-over means having a second Internet connection that triggers if your main connection goes down. This is dependent on your budget compared with your risk tolerance for being without an Internet connection for a period of time. We’ve seen outages for some customers for days, not hours. What would that do to your business?
Luckily, it is relatively easy to get at least a base level of redundancy. Many commercial firewalls allow for a second Internet (often marked as WAN) connection; some even can be set to switch automatically. And if you have limited means and don’t want to replicate exactly your connection speed & size, you can get a second circuit from an alternate provider for a low monthly cost. Comcast starts at $69.95 a month, Verizon’s FiOS for Business has a current startup special at $59.95, plus there are many other third-party options. There are even some appliances that allow you to use both of your Internet connections at the same time. This increases your available bandwidth, but when one connection has an issue it defaults seamlessly to the second until the faulty one is restored. So, for less than the cost of one mega Mocha Latte per business day, you could have a plan in place that would be part of your business continuity program. And in some cases, give you improved performance at the same time! Who wouldn’t want that?
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