How to Improve Network Application Performance

How to Improve Network Application Performance With SD-WAN

SD-WAN is quickly being adopted as the wide area network configuration of choice across multiple IT, voice, and data networking organizations and enterprises. It provides efficient, flexible and versatile software connections. This technology offers faster, smoother networks – a much-needed asset for IT personnel and network managers all around the globe. According to the State of the WAN report published in 2016, conventional WAN has tons of latency issues and packet data loss at higher levels. In this post, we’ll highlight the meaning of SD-WAN and its essential performance benefits.

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5 Ways Faster Internet Can Enhance Your Business

Businesses of all sizes in every industry rely on fast internet access to be competitive. The speed of a business’s internet directly affects its success. As technology improves, internet speeds get faster and more reliable.

Traditional cable or DSL internet providers offer speeds between 10 and 30 Mbps (megabits per second.) However, businesses that operate with fiber-based internet experience speeds up to 1000 Mbps. Fast internet for business is essential for ensuring the satisfaction of customers and employees alike.

Keep reading to learn 5 ways faster internet improves your business.

1. Access to High-Speed Internet Reduces Costs

Don’t let the initial startup costs of high-speed internet deter you from signing up for it. The initial costs often pay for themselves through the added efficiency and productivity that your business will experience.

Other direct savings options are available with fast internet for business. High-speed internet offers a telephone service called Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). This gives companies the option to have a telephone voice service connected to their high-speed internet. Depending on the number of employees and extensions your business has, you could save thousands of dollars by connecting a VOIP service to your internet.

VOIP allows your business to make calls through a handset, headset, laptop, tablet, and an app. All your business needs is a connection to high-speed internet to utilize this service. The best part of this telephone service is that caller IDs will register your business name and number.

2. Faster Internet Allows for More Productivity

Businesses majorly lose out on productivity levels if employees are waiting on a slow internet connection to load their work. Most employees in many types of businesses are incredibly reliant on internet access to successfully perform their job.

High-speed internet not only cuts down on the time that employees wait for applications and software to load, but it also supports multi-tasking across multiple applications at once. Delayed internet speeds affect research capabilities, customer service, emails, and in-house communications. All of these areas add up and cause your business to lose valuable time and money.

High-speed internet for business allows employees to operate efficiently between tasks and projects. Employees can complete tasks faster without dealing with the frustrations of a slow internet connection.

Traditional DSL internet easily gets interrupted with:

  • Poor weather conditions
  • Physical breakdowns
  • Electrical interference

These circumstances are far less likely to interfere with high-speed internet.

Reliable connection keeps your customers productive, too. If your business’s website loads slowly or even crashes, customers will be quick to take their business elsewhere. Maintain a loyal customer base with a reliable and fast internet connection.

3. High-Speed Internet Has Better Security

High-speed internet is better equipped against hacking and security breaches compared to traditional internet services. Security breaches present considerable risks and damages to businesses. Recovering from illegal access is always an expensive process.

Preventing security breaches before they happen is the safest and most affordable way to handle the cybersecurity of your business. You don’t want to risk losing valuable information about your business, or about your customers. Customers will not be happy with you if their personal information gets leaked in a data breach.

To further protect valuable data, many businesses backup their data offsite. As the amount of data increases, so does the need for reliable internet service. Slow internet connections interfere with data backups, often leaving some attempts unsuccessful.

Fiber optic internet can accommodate large data transfers. These smooth and quick transfers put your employees, customers, and owners at ease.

High-speed internet also protects your business with:

  • Security systems viewable from anywhere
  • Clear HD imaging
  • Protection against cybercrime
  • Adding phones, tablets, and other devices to your security system

4. Effectively Collaborate Remotely

High-speed internet allows your employees to work remotely with ease. You can extend your talent pool to the entire country if you can effectively operate remotely.

Remote workers depend on quality internet connections in order to successfully collaborate with other remote and in-house team members. Running a successful remote operation also allows you to save money on overhead costs.

Even if your employees only work remotely while traveling, high-speed internet allows them to share files, print necessary documents, and collaborate on company platforms as if they were physically in the office.

Isn’t it frustrating when a video meeting crashes or glitches? Slow internet gets even slower when multiple employees are working at the same time, not to mention an entire team. High-speed internet supports multiple employees each working on multiple devices during the day.

You can count on your video meetings to run smoothly with fiber optic internet. This is guaranteed to make your employees happy because the only thing worse than meetings is meetings that last way longer than they need to.

5. Faster Speeds Improve Cloud Access

The constant need to upload, download, and store items in a business setting is supported by cloud access and remote data storage. Things like software-as-a-service (SaaS), content management systems (CMS), and customer relationship management (CRM) programs rely on the cloud.

Slow internet speeds negatively affect the performance of these programs and applications. If customers on the other end of CRM programs experience a lag in processing data, they will lose their confidence in your business.

Almost all new software programs are designed to rely on fast cloud access. If your business has traditional slow internet, it will directly affect how these programs perform. High-speed internet is essential for utilizing new software that is designed to help your business find more success.

Take Your Business to the Next Level With Faster Internet

Fast internet for business is what takes your profits from good to great. Save money, collaborate productively, and keep your data safe with high-speed fiber optic internet. Faster internet is a valuable investment that pays for itself with the benefits it offers.

Are you ready to take your business to the next level and improve the lives of your employees and customers? Integrated Communications is here to help. Reach out to us to get started today!

Three Critical Infrastructure Elements for Network Uptime

shutterstock_85778392In today’s fast-paced world, where business is increasingly conducted electronically, infrastructure reliability and network up-time are crucial. Infrastructure weaknesses can lead to network downtime, and outages can prove costly for businesses.

Network uptime can be affected by three primary factors. Focusing on adding redundancy to these three elements can help ensure network reliability and decrease the likelihood of an outage.

Overheating

Servers, like any piece of equipment, have the potential to overheat if proper steps are not taken to control their temperature. Servers typically run uninterrupted, unlike desktop PCs that are powered down, or go into idle mode throughout the day. Servers also are often housed in small rooms, and in close quarters with other network equipment. These server rooms can quickly warm to levels that can jeopardize equipment.

Whether a business is housing its own equipment, or outsourcing network and server functions to a third party or cloud provider, it is critical to ensure that network infrastructure is properly cooled. At least two cooling methods should be employed to ensure there is a backup in case one cooling method fails. Possible cooling solutions include rooftop air conditioning units, external condensers, and computer room air conditioning units.

Power Failures

Sometimes the most obvious point of weakness is the most overlooked. Infrastructure equipment requires power to function, and reliable data center power with a backup power solution for redundancy is critical.

An A+B power feed, which creates two independent channels from the public power source to the infrastructure equipment, should be at the top of the requirement list for data center power. This eliminates potential single points of failure when power channels are shared at any point.

Some of the power options that can be included in each feed are uninterruptible power supply, utility power, back-up generator, maintenance bypass panel, internal server power, mains distribution panel, and an automatic transfer switch. Each power feed should have at least one of these options, and should be able to handle the entire server load at peak usage independently to create redundancy.

Network Connections

The equipment used to connect infrastructure to the Internet is another potential point of weakness. Routers and switches wear out relatively quickly, and should be properly maintained and replaced in a timely manner. Integrating backup connections to create redundancy can help prevent network downtime. In addition, connections from the data center to the external Internet network are crucial for network uptime. Peering arrangements with multiple connections create redundancy and reliability, and can optimize performance.

Another important key to making sure potential network failure is mitigated is to choose network and infrastructure providers that are committed to reducing or eliminating single points of failure by adding backups and redundancies. Network downtime is costly and unacceptable, but there are simple ways to build in redundancy. Cutting corners on infrastructure reliability leads to network downtime and service interruptions that can ultimately cost more than building redundancy in from outset.