Bolster your Business Continuity Strategy with Global SIM Solutions for Wireless Failover

Bolster your Business Continuity Strategy with Global SIM Solutions for Wireless Failover

Network failures and connectivity disruptions can cost businesses thousands to millions of dollars every year. These problems can arise due to a variety of problems ranging from cyber attacks and vandalism to severe weather and accidents. Regardless of the cause of any connection errors, customers may associate the problems with your business.

Business Continuity and Failover

There are many business functions & critical applications that require a stable connection such as point of sale (PoS) systems, ATM connections, Voice over IP (VoIP), or cloud access. Many businesses outsource critical functions such as by utilizing Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud based programs. This and other reasons can require a network that is reliable and has adequate speed. When business connectivity is impacted, the downtime can lead to major losses, both in monetary terms and customer perception. A redundant or failover system is important to consider before you need it.

Planning for business continuity and setting up a failover system will help reduce downtime and ensure operability for business-critical services. Here are some of the main things to think about when considering both continuity and failover.

Business Continuity Strategy

When creating a business continuity strategy, it is important to consider both the current and future needs of your organization. Continuity starts with establishing the reliability and security of your current network. It is also important to consider access to the internet and the reliability and security of the routes your business data will travel. The three basic options of network continuity are upgrading, adding redundancy, and implementing a failover system.

Upgrading Old Networks

Many networks utilize land lines or wireline connections. These networks services are generally affordable and offer bandwidth and speed that can beat most wireless options, although this trend is changing rapidly with 5G wireless technology.   Your business networks may use old or outdated legacy equipment or technology which are less reliable and due for failure. Your business or organization could benefit greatly from upgrading networking technologies to achieve increased bandwidths, upload and download speeds, and more reliable service.  While evaluating upgrading options, wireless connections are often considered for their lower cost to deploy and fast installation times.  Wireless services can be sized easily based on the amount of data needed and the application used for.  For hard-to-reach locations, wireless services have the potential for significant cost savings over land-line network services  If your business requires temporary or mobile connections, wireless connectivity is the perfect option to include in your evaluation when upgrading old network infrastructure.

Adding Redundancy

Another option to consider is adding a layer of redundancy to key aspects of your network to ensure business continuity. Analyzing your business needs, customer traffic, and future growth will help determine what backup network types to add. This could mean additional wireline, wireless, satellite, cellular, or combination of each network type. The costs should be carefully considered as well as the performance of each type compared to expected benefit. Wireless, cellular, and satellite options are great for mobile business units or geographical regions that prohibit the cost effective use of land lines. However, satellite networks have higher latency and other limitations. Latency in a network refers to the time it takes data to reach its destination. Since data must first reach a satellite in orbit before being transmitted to the nearest receiver for your business, this option may not be suitable for business functions requiring fast and reliable service. Wireless and cellular networks are a great redundant backup to a wireline network. Cellular network advances such as 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) allow for significant download and upload speeds on a wireless network and speed/performance will only improve with the pathway to 5G wireless technology.

Failover Strategy

A primary network and access to the internet can be compromised by many means. Redundant network connections leveraging the same infrastructure used to mitigate losses could also be impacted by the same causes. Severe weather such as hurricanes, high winds, hail, and flooding can destroy landlines and interfere with satellite or infrared communication. Hackers or cyber attackers have a wide range of tools such as phishing or Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) attacks they can use to disrupt connectivity or steal vital data. The moment your business connectivity is impacted a failover system would allow an alternative network, such as a cellular connection, to kick in. The seamless transition of business data from the primary network to the failover system is extremely important. Not having a failover system in place could cost your business greatly. A single disruption in a connection for a moment could cascade issues throughout your network. This could lead to long delays for customers or business units requiring mission-critical information. Businesses that depend on sensors, Internet of Things (IoT), or Machine to Machine (M2M) devices may not be able to handle the loss of connectivity.