How Much Does Your Work Depend on the Internet? 322
malord asks: "I work for a small company that has recently had problems finding a stable internet connection. It started when we moved our office in order to upgrade our connection speed. We decided to go with cable internet through Comcast, since they offered the best speed for the price and told us that it would be available before we moved. Unfortunately, Comcast did not provide any service for two months after we moved, so we piggy backed on an existing (slow and unreliable) wireless account with another company in the meantime. When Comcast finally came around, the service that was provided was far from adequate with a consistent 30% packet loss and multiple disconnects everyday, which was confirmed through Comcast's tech support. Throughout this process, we have realized that having a reliable internet connection is more important than having a phone line and almost as necessary as electricity. What would you do if your internet was suddenly like dial-up for weeks at a time? How much money would your workplace lose if it was out for an hour or an entire day?"
Lost forever? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How timely! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How timely! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How timely! (Score:2, Insightful)
And you only have 1 T1?
If it really was that mission critical you'd have a second dual-diverse line.
Amateurs.
Your fault. (Score:1, Insightful)
100% (Score:3, Insightful)
is this the right place for this question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much all of it. But then, look at the crowd you're asking.
I work from home half the time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's a question for you (Score:4, Insightful)
1: Buy an SDSL business service from one supplier, with SLAs, rigorous uptimes and repair times.
or...
2: Buy cheap ADSL services from two or more suppliers but forget the SLA, uptime and repair time guarantees?
I strongly suspect that (2) is the cheaper and more robust system.
Re:is this the right place for this question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't use a consumer-grade service for buisness (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on Frugalness of the Company (Score:1, Insightful)
I suspect that, at least, 25% of the Slashdot readership uses a search engine to look up things like UART, C-language terms (e.g., printf), Perl-script concepts (like regular expression), etc.
25% of the readership could not do their jobs (at their frugal companies) without the Internet and a search engine. I speak from experience.
Re:How timely! (Score:5, Insightful)
South, the only person likely to read that as snide is you.
He's completely correct - if connectivity is as critical to your business as you're trying to make out then you should have at least N+1 redundancy not just for your comms links, but for your core servers like mail and web (if you're hosting your own).
You work for a non-profit business. That doesn't mean you work for a no-money business! Make a business case to your management *now* to get a redundant link so you're not a repeat victim. Don't wait one, two or six months to do this, do it now while the pain is still fresh in their memories! You may not be planning to change providers any time soon, but do you honestly think you'll always have completely unimpeded 100% uptime?
If you fail to do anything about this then you're no better than the noob at home who thinks his RAID array is enough for backups and then complains about losing his multi-terabyte porn collection when he's defrag'd after "accidentally" deleting it.
Re:Here's a question for you (Score:2, Insightful)
You low SLA providers are sure as shit not going to be providing you with a BGP feed, so its not redundent, anyway. Multiple MXs and RRDNS does not count.
Re:How timely! (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Comcast service an oxymoron? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How timely! (Score:4, Insightful)
runs on extremely tight deadlines? Where clients don't
always double-check that their emailed order was received
but expect a job to be done/shipped/delivered the same day?
It's not exactly feasible for most companies to offsite
one or more employees just to maintain a constant internet
presence.
Web hosting isn't the only vital internet service.
Re:How timely! (Score:3, Insightful)
If it was unbelieveably important, a courier should have been hired to deliver a CD or hard drive. That's what professionals do. Email is designed to be a "best effort" service. It's perfectly fine for routine day-to-day communications, but not for "unbelievably important" things. If it's really that bad, the people who sent the material by email should be reprimanded or fired.
Re:bah that's nothing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bah that's nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
How did that get marked "insightful?" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Here's a question for you (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for the fact that both the ADSL lines go over the same copper bundles from the same CO from the same LEC regardless of whether or not they come from the same ISP. Most businesses feel that $600/mo for Internet service isn't worth the price until they realize how they've built themselves into a corner.
A sad fact is that most small and medium businesses will go through this pain and suffering at least once each year for several years before learning better and, in the end, spend more and lose more money trying to do Internet on the cheap than paying up-front to do it the right way. And while it seems sensible and cost-effective to host mission-critical services in-house, the reality is that if they are truly mission-critical and you can't afford proper redundancy, than those services are best off being hosted or deployed at a co-lo center that does provide N+1 redundancy and 24x7 business-class service and support.
Lessons learned:I've been out of the small/medium business consulting market for a few years now. But when I was consulting I encouraged customers to host or co-lo all mission critical applications and use terminal services (Windows remote desktop) or Citrix for access. The hosting or co-lo center provides all the redundancy and 24x7 service and support, you just pay the bill. The cost was not unreasonably more expensive than hosting these apps in-house when you consider downtime, maintenance and ongoing consulting fees to keep things going.
That's just off the top of my head. I could go on, but then I'd have to send someone a bill.Re:Don't use a consumer-grade service for buisness (Score:1, Insightful)
What this comes down to is simple -- it will happen that there are going to be places on earth where running an internet-based business will be impossible.
Would you try to build a business that has a mission-critical need for 600,000 gallons of water a day in the middle of your vast (and impressive) desert? If so, would you expect it to cost no more than it would cost someone near a large river right where it enters the ocean?
Why do people go for the cheapest? (Score:3, Insightful)