12
CONNECTIVITY
The
Weakest
Link
By John Volanthen, CEO,
Hub Network Services
www.hns.net
Mitigating network failure outside
the data centre fortress to ensure
continued connectivity
Centralising and moving IT infrastructure off-site either
to a colocation data centre or a cloud provider leaves
organisations totally dependent on the available network
infrastructure. For example, a call centre moving telephony
to cloud platforms offers significant benefits. However,
without suitable backup connectivity any loss of data
services leaves operations dead in the water.
All too often, the most appropriate network design and
connectivity solutions are overlooked. Having allocated the
lion’s share of the budget on the best environment money
can buy network managers and installers are often forced
to make do with the cheapest connectivity they can find.
This is usually much less diverse or resilient than it perhaps
should be.
Network diversity
In order to avoid risking external networks becoming the
weakest link in the chain, all the best practice taking place
inside the data centre should be considered secondary to
the careful evaluation and investment in stable, robust and
truly diverse fibre links between locations. Putting this into
real-life context in the outside world, networks are exposed
day in day out to many risks both environmental, such as
frost, fire and flood, and man-made. Fibres can be prone
to accidental damage, not to mention vandalism that puts
matters beyond your control. Wheely bins set on fire and
thrown down open manholes are one such example, or
time to fix SLAs becoming academic when the fire brigade
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