24 November 2014

The loss of landline connections due to extreme weather has a real impact on businesses that depend on voice and data communications for regular financial transactions.

BRIAN ANDERSON discusses how to maintain critical business network continuity for online transactions.

Severe weather can have severe economic effects. Goldman Sachs has estimated that little more than half of the US economic slowdown was due to bad weather at the beginning of 2014.

Earlier this year, many British businesses also got a taste of how extreme weather could knock out essential services. The loss of landline connections had a real impact on businesses that depend on voice and data communications for day-to-day work and doing regular financial transactions.

Electrical outages also meant systems went offline, adding to the pressure on network and IT managers to reset and reboot routers and computers once power was restored.

No matter what department or functional area within a business, ask any manager and they will agree that any form of downtime ultimately has a negative impact on a company’s bottom line.

Recent research by the Chartered Management Institute revealed that the average cost of downtime for SMEs is £27,000 per hour, with this sum being higher for businesses reliant on e-commerce and reaching six figures for larger companies.

And it is not just severe weather that can knock out vital connectivity. The theft of industrial cables, including telecoms cabling, has become a massive problem in recent times. For example, in 2012 £770 million worth of copper cable was stolen, bringing down voice and data communications services without warning.

For distributed enterprises – companies with two or more branch locations such as retailers, pub and restaurant chains, service kiosks, etc – the financial impact of service downtime is even greater. Loss of connectivity and the inability to process transactions can mean hefty financial losses and potentially lost customers.

When it comes to something as important as your livelihood, businesses can’t afford to simply muddle through the problems and hope that connectivity will be restored soon. Having some contingencies for when network connections go down for minor or major reasons is a wise move.

Options for distributed businesses

Most organisations can turn a range of procedures to respond to a major incident and work towards getting systems up and running again.

But what network business continuity options are available for organisations with a distributed business model that consists of many small locations that are widely geographically dispersed?

Such organisations need adequate failover systems in place across all locations to handle any unexpected loss of connectivity. Whether it is a retail location, restaurant, kiosk, distribution centre or branch office, the order of the day is to maintain continuous connectivity to headquarters and secure payment processors.

What’s more, a well-designed solution can do more than assure faultless connectivity – it can also deliver the added value of enabling quick, remote fixes when network troubles occur.

The ramifications of losing a network connection are severe, but the costs of having backup services can be extremely expensive.

There is an option to have entirely separate, redundant communications links into each location that can offer a switch-over facility. Such an option is, however, unrealistic for a distributed business with many different locations. Additionally, multiple links have inherent risks too as they may share the same conduit duct.

Another model for ensuring connectivity has been to insert a wireless USB in the available router port. Though this approach does offer some level of failover capability, there can be connectivity issues or poor speeds due to an IT closet that is in poor wireless coverage or has RF noise.

Selling the cellular network

For several years, mobile telecoms has offered the basis for a failover system using 3G. A good example of this would be Money Mart, a leading provider of affordable alternative financial services in the US. Money Mart embarked on a large-scale project to install backup connectivity at all retail locations. With stores in both urban and rural areas, the firm couldn’t always rely on a landline so it chose a wireless backup solution based on 2G and then 3G technology.

But as cellular networks have evolved and the need for higher speeds/bandwidth has also changed within enterprises, the opportunity to consider 4G for failover solutions has arisen.

4G offers much faster mobile broadband links than the original mobile internet 3G service. This means more data can be carried and the links themselves are inherently more stable and reliable.

While originally marketed to consumers, the opportunity of using 4G for business applications is becoming more attractive as the availability of access to LTE services spreads nationwide. So 4G could be the basis for a quick and efficient failover solution when a landline connection goes down from an everyday or exceptional network problem.

The key here is the mobile broadband speeds of 4G that can offer failover broadband connectivity at similar or even higher speeds to ADSL links. Currently, peak 4G download speeds of 100Mbps and uploads of 60Mbps are achievable in a failover situation, allowing enterprises to keep their branch locations up and running smoothly.

4G for failover

To provide seamless continuity from landline to 4G connectivity, SMEs and enterprises with distributed locations like shops can turn to a new range of 4G wireless gateway products. When the landline goes down, the system automatically switches over to the 4G connection.

However, when landlines go down, the systems in a remote location can require resetting. 4G failover gateways can perform a vital role here for either handling an emergency or an everyday situation when remote support is necessary. When the 4G network continuity equipment offers an out-of-band management (OOBM) capability, a range of support tasks are possible.

While routers are typically very reliable, they can be a single point of failure, and may require a firmware update or sometimes just a reboot. A 4G wireless gateway with OODM and Reverse Telnet can allow remote network administrators to log in to the enterprise router console port to perform configuration updates or reset commands.

Once the initial problems on the enterprise router have been resolved via OOBM, network administrators can perform in-band management of other network connected devices. Of course, there are wireless OOBM add-on products available today, but having an integrated capability in a single form factor offers monthly telecom cost savings and a simplified installation and maintenance path, avoiding the complexities of getting standalone units ‘talking’ to the NOC.

This approach allows the use of 4G for simplifying network management across remote, distributed locations, while delivering lower cost of ownership. By saving an on-site visit from a technician, OOBM can vastly reduce downtime and associated repair costs, especially when those locations are remote or numerous.

Gateway to uptime

There are some challenges with network managers adopting 4G as the failover or even the primary broadband connectivity solution for retail or hospitality chains or small branch offices. Those links need to be easy to monitor and control when issues arise. Clearly it is going to be important to monitor airtime usage and set and receive failover event and airtime threshold alerts.

Choosing a gateway device that includes comprehensive connectivity management and is bundled with wireless connectivity via a business specialised mobile virtual network operator, means units can be setup in stores or branches in minutes.

This approach can minimise the potential for bill shock by ensuring the network manager chooses the appropriate failover or primary rate plans and providing alerts when airtime thresholds are reached. Typically, a failover rate starts from €25 per month but it is important that network managers make sure the plan includes LTE network features such as secure private network and fixed IP addresses to make it easier to deploy and manage 4G gateways in the field.

While 4G could potentially be more widely leveraged for failover solutions, there are other primary connection applications that are attractive. For businesses that need faster setup for broadband connectivity than the weeks offered by some carriers, 4G connectivity managed via a gateway device could be an ideal solution, especially in locations difficult to service with wire lines.

A good example here could be pop-up enterprises that need to setup quickly and trade for a short period of time, perhaps over a festive or holiday season.

In a world where connectivity is growing at exponential rates, the expectation is that internet access should be readily available at all times. Most individuals can afford to be a little put out when they lose their internet access. For distributed enterprises, the financial impact of losing connectivity is painful. Implementing a failover system that is specifically tailored to mitigate financial risk should be a priority.