Everything You Need to Know About Internet Failover for Businesses

One could easily argue that communication is the backbone of our existence and that our Internet connection is the lifeblood of our business. In less than a lifetime, the way we do business has completely changed – we now rely so heavily on our internet connection that when we lose it, even for a short period of time, we become both professionally and personally incapacitated.

In fact, in a recent ITIC survey, 40 percent of respondents reported that an hour of downtime cost them more than a million dollars. That’s a little more than just inconvenient – an Internet interruption or outage could cripple your business.

What causes your business Internet connection to fail?

What. Just. Happened? When you suddenly lose your business Internet connection or experience service interruptions or lags, it can be due to a wide range of possibilities depending on the type of connection—from an errant backhoe to fires or mudslides.

Why Does Internet Go Down?

  • Overloaded network
  • Outages due to repairs
  • Outages due to weather or natural disaster
  • Outages due to accidents
  • Inadequate or outdated equipment
  • Carrier service or network issues
  • Last-mile provider issues
  • Packet loss due to any of these things
  • Latency spikes due to any of these things
  • More

What is Internet failover?

Internet failover employs one or more backup Internet connections for redundancy, enabling your connectivity to access – or “failover to” – another network connection when your primary connection fails. Our increasingly interconnected and cloud-dependent world makes failover essential to business continuity.

Why are backup Internet connections so important?

Backup Internet connections – or Internet failover solutions – are crucial to protecting your business from service interruption. Internet redundancy shields your business from incurring costly downtime during disasters or other events that cause outages.

What are the different types of Internet failover solutions?

You can create network redundancy by combining two Internet lines of connectivity, wired or wireless. You can pair 4G or 5G broadband with a fixed wireless connection. Or you can pair fiber with DSL, broadband cable, or even dialup with satellite. You can pair two of the same types of connections, but if failover is your goal, greater connection diversity will get you more redundancy.

What is the best business Internet connection?

Fiber-optic connections are the gold standard for Internet speed and reliability, especially as part of SLA-backed dedicated Internet access (DIA) packages. A key differentiator to look for in a fiber DIA solution is the type of circuit provided. Type I circuits, which are fiber connections where both the last mile and Internet service provider (ISP) are the same vendor, offer more security, stronger SLAs, low latency, fewer potential points of failure, and a single source of accountability for uptime and repairs.

What are the advantages of dedicated Internet access?

Dedicated Internet access means you don’t have to share connectivity with neighboring businesses. The bandwidth is exclusively available to your business. Additionally, DIA adds a powerful layer of security to your network.

DIA sourced from the right provider is reliable, scalable, secure and fast. APX Net’s Dedicated Internet Access services, for example, is built exclusively on Type 1 circuits and always comes with a five-nines uptime SLA and 24/7 network operations center (NOC) support.

DIA failover protection with SD-WAN

The beauty of DIA – particularly when built from Type I circuits – is dramatically reduced downtime exposure. But no single connection is immune from all disruptive threats. Redundancy is essential, and with reliable dedicated Internet in place, most businesses opt for a less expensive broadband or wireless solution for failover/redundancy. This often is facilitated via SD-WAN solutions, which, depending on configuration, also can prioritize high-value traffic (e.g., voice or video) over your DIA connection while sending lower-priority traffic (e-mail) over your secondary (backup connection).

Why pair SD-WAN with dedicated Internet access?

SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) is an intelligent software solution that provides control and visibility over all your network traffic and activity. It’s an inexpensive way to monitor multiple Internet connections and/or multiple office locations, adding redundancy, security and reliability. This is achieved through real-time traffic prioritization and load-balancing, protecting both – or all – of your Internet connections from being overloaded or bogged down by high-bandwidth services like video or streaming.

So, what’s the ultimate Internet failover solution?

Ultimately, any successful business Internet failover solution should have the following four components:

  • Primary Internet connection (preferably a Type I-circuit DIA solution)
  • Backup Internet connection
  • SD-WAN
  • 24/7 Support
Ready to deploy the ultimate business Internet solution with maximum redundancy and guaranteed uptime?

Contact an APX Net Data Networks Specialist today!

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