Another cause of service outages is network connectivity. A loss of connectivity resulting in downtime can lead to a number of negative business impacting events. What causes a loss of connectivity?
- Equipment failure
- Software crash
- Human error
- Denial of service (DoS) attacks
- Fiber cuts
Companies that manage network connectivity in-house to support mission critical applications are more susceptible to experiencing downtime due to loss of connectivity, as it is cost prohibitive to design the same level of redundancy that a commercial data center provider would implement. Typically, the capital cost and monthly operating costs of establishing a fully redundant and resilient network in addition to supporting such a network is prohibitive. As such, these companies will make use of one Internet carrier, creating a single point of failure. Furthermore, companies that manage network connectivity in-house:
- Will not have access to the number of different carriers that a data center provider does
- May not be multi-homed
- May not utilize BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)
- Are probably only able to use a single network provider; if using more than one, they’re relegated to one physical fiber entrance.
All data center providers should offer a redundant network setup — this is common to the industry, and a standard benefit to utilizing a data center partner.
Ken Hill has more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunications and information technology industry that led him to his position as Chief Technology Officer of Expedient. Ken has demonstrated throughout his career the ability to manage a broad spectrum of technical environments.
