Monthly Archives: August 2014

28 Aug

Answers for Today’s K-12 Network

Summer time fun is over and kids all over the country are going back to school or are already back in school.  The image of a small kid hauling a backpack filled with books is fast fading in favor of computer savvy kids with laptop, smart phones, tablets, and ipad’s!  Juxtaposed with the rapid movement of teaching, homework assignments, student records on line, etc. are bound to increase the workload and stress of most network administrators.

The Internet plays a vital part of daily activity in today’s K-12 network.  Students, teachers and administrators are using this tool as a means of expanding the classroom experience.  Network administrators are facing increasing pressure from federal, state, and local regulators to ensure it can meet ever growing demands.

Limitations in access to the Internet and other wide area network resources can affect an institutions ability to meet these directives.  Slow speeds and unresponsive systems are sure to raise the heckles of students, teachers and parents alike (not to mention school administrators).  Unfortunately, the network admin staff is the first ones blamed.  But fear not, planning and the use of technology can assist in overcoming and resolving many network related problems.  BYOD, PARCC and other requirements can be met along with a marked reduction in stress.  You can learn more from this informative paper.

Click HERE to download the white paper

27 Aug

Time Warner Cable Down – Internet Service Disrupted

I woke up to the news that Time Warner Cable backbone had gone down this morning.  The report said TWC was handling a large volume of calls from customers.  I am not surprised.  Connectivity has long moved from the ‘nice to have” column to the “imperative” column.  Customers need connectivity for a variety of reasons.  I have no doubt business reasons predominate.

Fortunately for my team and myself, FatPipe customers are able to carry on due to the WAN redundancy FatPipe technology provides.  While the customers have an interest to get the TWC connection up as quickly as possible – having a redundant connection affords them the luxury of time.

FatPipe’s router clustering technology would have been the perfect foil for this unforeseen event.  While admittedly the available bandwidth would be smaller without the TWC connection, the secondary connection allows for uninterrupted connectivity.  If you do not have WAN redundancy and were unfortunate enough to use TWC, we at FatPipe are here to assist you with reliability and redundancy solutions.

25 Aug

Disaster Strike Anytime – Be Prepared

World events in the last few years teach us that at any moment a disaster could strike.  A smart IT Systems Manager would have built a business continuity plan into his scheme of operations, by providing for a sound, tested disaster recovery plan.  What are the essential features of a sound Disaster Recovery Plan?

 Preserve Data:

 For any reason if the business network fails, then the data it contains as well as continuity of data is of paramount importance to restore normality of operations.

 Data Backup:

 For businesses which handle a large volume of data, hourly, daily, weekly or monthly backups may not be enough for effective disaster recovery.  Ideally, data backup should be on a continual, real time basis.

 Detection of Disasters:

 The disaster may affect only one part of business operations but could have a domino effect.   Therefore, quick detection and recovery is important.  In-built diagnostic tools will alert the Systems Manager immediately.

Offsite Location:

 Having a back-up site at a different geographical location will help in disaster recovery in case the damage to the primary site is too extensive for immediate recovery.  The offsite location will give time to re-locate with minimal loss of business continuity.

 WAN Redundancy:

 More important than physical locations is the redundancy available in communication lines.  This is vital for business continuity and disaster recovery.  Seamless redundancy will ensure that business operations are not affected.

 Employee Training:

 Every employee should be given adequate training on the disaster recovery plan.  In the event of a crucial employee being incapacitated, there should be backups in the chain of command to take over.

 Disaster Recovery – Awareness and Attention:

 Complacency is the weakest link in disaster recovery and business continuity.  Employees should be constantly reinforced about the disaster recovery plan and its importance.  Regular drills should be a part of employee training.

 A disaster could strike any time.  A smart organization is prepared for the worst and will recover in the shortest possible time.

21 Aug

Key WAN Design Considerations for Cloud Connectivity & Business Continuity

It is hard to believe the Internet is over 25 years old.  During this time the world witnessed exponential growth in the Internet and with it Wide Area Networks (WANs).  Today business life would be unimaginable without WANs.  Commerce, emails, data transfer, information searched all depends on WANs.  Thus WANs are not only ubiquitous, they are vital.

All of us have experiences WAN outages (if you have not you are lucky!).  the moment this happens every employee is up in arms, productivity plunges, use of cuss words increase and in general the mood turns sour – and who gets blamed? – the network administration group.  The only other thing that is bound to get people even more upset is if the paycheck is not deposited on time!

Unfortunately, if a WAN is only connected by one data-line, and the line is cut or goes down, chaos results.  Even though the ISP has an SLA with you, it is only a promise that the network with be up a certain percent of the time. If not they pay a penalty while you incur the wrath of employees.  To avoid this, many network administrators introduce redundancy to WANs.  Redundancy can be achieved in many ways.  Multiple lines aggregated using BGP or FatPipe technology solves the problem.  BGP is arcane and requires a great deal of expertise while FatPipe technology is “set it and forget it”.  This paper will discuss discusses WAN redundancy and reliability and is a good starting point in ensuring you have a “high availability WAN”

Click HERE to download the white paper

18 Aug

Importance of WAN in Business

Wide area networks are an essential communication tool in modern day businesses.  Since it is one of the areas of high operational cost, a WAN should be designed carefully, so that costs and efficiency are optimized.  Since there are many competing technologies, choosing the appropriate WAN solution is imperative.

Many businesses opt for dedicated MPLS lines to connect each WAN node.  One of the main advantages is that MPLS lines offer excellent connectivity and quality, but the downside is that it is expensive.  To reduce costs, using IP based VPN [Virtual Private Networks] over inexpensive broadband connections is a good option.

Acknowledging the strategic importance of WAN connectivity to a business, care and thought should be put into its design.  An area that should never be neglected is being prepared for a WAN connection to fail.   If connectivity is lost, it could mean significant lost revenue and severe disruption to business processes.   The loss of customers and goodwill may never be recovered.  The business may even fold in such circumstances.  WAN redundancy should be a part of the design factors.

FatPipe technology was designed in such events and could mean the difference between a major problem and a mere blip in business operations.