Mission-Critical Applications and the Public Internet
There has been a growing trend toward the reduction of operational computing costs in small and medium sized businesses for the last 15 years. Drops in hardware and software costs have fueled this reduction. Enterprise computing has come down to the smallest of enterprises. The low cost and easy access to high speed internet has accelerated thegrowth of iternet applications. Both of these trends have lowered costs.
Today the internet is relied on for every type of business transaction that you can think of through to credit processing between businesses and banking institutions. Yes the internet is an infrastructure that hold the veritable panacea of applications for one low price per month. I can run Virtual Private Network (VPNs) over the internet. I can run my corporate web site on the internet or access my CRM (Customer Relations Management) application. Backup is possible over the net for my mission critical sensitive data to offsite vaults to protect my business. My email communications, fax communications, voice communications and video communications are all running over the public internet. Post and courier services no longer carry messages and data to remote locations when we can simply transfer gigabytes of data across the public internet.
The impact of the net has been profoundacross society. New types of communication such as social networking and internet messaging have emerged and are mainstream. Today’s internet savvy individual can call someone on Skype at no cost wherever they are in the world. This means a rapid reshaping of the public telephone landscape.
The challenge in running your business or mission critical applications is the fact that all internet connections are created equally. One can have the problem of old cabling and underground cable for the last mile to your operation. In this area all providers are not created equally or over the same time frame. It is wise to diversify your last mile connections to give your much more reliability and protection.
Time sensitive applications such as voice may suffer from your connectivity when net enabled. The quality of line required for specific applications may not be the same and you could be at risk of packet loss and dropped connections. Always delpoy mission critical applications with a backup point of entry and exit to the public networks and other connections. Sometimes a point to point connection can provide the best choice over comlete internet connectivity.
Not every internet connection is created equally, even from the same provider. Cost savings in one area, may need to be re-invested in to new areas to allow the organization to do more with less but with multiple options for our security and access.
Filed under: Computers & Technology