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Imagine driving a car that has no spare tire. It is possible to go miles and miles without needing it, however, if one of the tires punctures, the driver will have a more difficult problem to get around.
Under this circumstance, the trip will be interrupted, the safety of the vehicle occupants is compromised, the journey will last much longer and, among others, you are at the mercy of the availability of a service provider who may be very far away from you.
This situation helps to understand the size of the internet dependency that thousands of companies have. Has the connection dropped? Probably 90% of the demands are paralyzed, something that causes problems with deadlines, goals and lost productivity.
Every second of downtime generates huge losses; and it is not new: 6 years ago, there was a stop in Amazon systems that lasted half an hour, but it was enough for the electronic retail giant to lose more than $ 60 thousand per minute.
With small and medium-sized companies, the impacts can also be immense. Sudden breaks lead to lost productivity, with employees stopped for hours and dissatisfied customers / suppliers.
At such times, transferring responsibility to the internet provider is not a viable option. After all, this can give the impression of lack of professionalism and zeal with the structure itself. That is, small businesses have more to lose with internet outages, as they often have reduced resources to recover the connection quickly and steadily.
Depending on the industry, the customer can quickly leave the establishment and seek another option in the competition.
In search of the internet free of breaks
Fortunately, there is a solution that can avoid all these problems: it is the redundancy of links. This involves installing a second internet link, but with an intelligent system that manages and optimizes both resources.
The existence of the alternative connection ensures that, in case the main connection becomes inoperative, the services will continue to be provided, without users even realizing it.
Making a comparison with the car’s spare tire metaphor, it would be like having a flat tire and changing it so that the car doesn’t stop for even 1 second – and that passengers don’t even notice what happened.
In this context, two resources come into play. One of them is Failover, which checks the integrity of the main link and, if the quality is low, transfers all communication to the second link. In this way, no task or employee is affected by the instability of the primary connection.
There is also Load Balance, the method that uses the two internet links, ensuring better performance for users’ connections. Thus, in addition to preventing any link from being inactive, employees will have the feeling that the internet has become faster, as there will be less competition for the same band.
What needs to be evaluated
Like any strategic resource, the adoption of redundant links requires analysis. Initially, it is necessary to carry out a detailed mapping of the most relevant demands, determining which are the most important applications of the company. This should include the specific needs of each sector and the possible adjustments that can be made by reorganizing the IT infrastructure.
It is also necessary to compare suppliers and operators, checking the structure of support services, network management and SLAs – acronym for “Service Level Agreement” that consists of a contract between the institution that intends to provide the service and the customer that wishes to benefit. In addition, ensure that the contracted links are on different internet trunks, enabling effective link redundancy
Another issue to be taken into account is the existence of traffic monitoring resources – something fundamental to monitor the variations in load between the links.
There is also the issue of digital security, as the redundancy of links cannot bring vulnerabilities that jeopardize the protection and business results. Contact us and learn how to avoid this problem. After all, we help companies to identify gaps that can put their results at risk and suggest customized digital security solutions to meet these needs.
Benefits that go beyond the obvious
The redundancy of links is not just about the comfort of having a highly available internet. The main focus is to understand that it is a strategic tool.
There are estimates calculating that the cost of acquiring a new customer is five times higher than maintaining existing ones. Eventual periods without internet generate dissatisfaction that can lead to the loss of contracts, compromising even the company’s image. The question also arises: with an internet that is constantly breaking, how many businesses are lost by missing out on the opportunity?
Increasing the efficiency of IT resources can help with the stability of the company. The reason is that a slow growing market calls for the use of restructuring strategies, such as process automation and the use of smart tools. Whatever the case, the company must have minimally reliable access to the internet.
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