Riaan Leuschner is the Managing Director of Nology, a leading South African security-driven broadband, networking and communication hardware and solutions provider.
As a result of recent investments into infrastructure, broadband is no longer a costly, exclusive commodity to be consumed sparingly. The opening up of the service provider market, along with several undersea cables that have landed, with more on the way, and fibre loops beginning to come into effect in metropolitan areas, have enabled bandwidth to become far more readily accessible, at higher speeds, with better quality, and at a reasonable cost.
This additional bandwidth has had a widespread impact, with both business and home consumers taking advantage of enhanced connectivity. In the business space it has opened up access to next-generation technologies that were not realistic in the past, including cloud computing and hosted services.
Hosted services in particular have great appeal in the local market for their ‘per user’ payment model, as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can access the latest services and software without having to invest in their own infrastructure, bringing down capital expenses. This type of service also helps to substantially reduce in-house IT costs, enables smaller businesses to leverage greater economies of scale, and it supports the mobile workforce.
However, hosted and cloud services rely on a highly stable Internet connection in order to function, as they are run online. If the Internet connection fails, access to services such as email, Microsoft Exchange and other information located in the cloud will be interrupted, halting productivity and effectively shutting the business down for the duration of the connectivity outage. This means that uptime as close to 100% as possible is vital for hosted and cloud services to be a viable business option.
This poses something of a dilemma for local businesses, since ADSL is by far the most superior and stable broadband option for SMEs currently, and yet the reality of copper theft means that the probability of this connection failing at some point is high. Mobile broadband such as 3G and HSDPA is not subject to copper theft problems, but it is a more contended and less stable that could prove prohibitive as a primary means of connectivity, and cellular technology is also prone to its own issues.
Redundancy is key in ensuring stability of connectivity, and one way of achieving this is to enable multiple broadband connection types into an organisation, so that when one fails a secondary connection method can be used to ensure continued productivity. Hardware is a core component of creating this redundancy, as it is vital to have technology that supports automatic failover and failback between various connectivity options such as ADSL and 3G for a seamless business operation.
A mix of fixed-line and wireless connectivity is optimal, providing a stable core with backup options to deliver secondary connectivity in the event of primary failure. Multiple connections can be used to ensure business continuity, and thanks to new technology dedicated lines can even be implemented for specific services, with intelligent devices available to monitor line traffic and optimise bandwidth usage while providing the required failover between fixed line and wireless.
When selecting service providers, one method many organisations are opting for is to split connectivity types between different providers in order to decrease the likelihood of all connections failing and to improve redundancy. Other organisations may choose to simplify management by taking out multiple services with a single provider.
However, regardless of whether an organisation chooses to use a single provider or multiple providers, there are certain important considerations to be taken into account. The reputation of the service provider is important, as is its existing customer base and the pricing structures on offer. The variety of services on offer as well as the value-adds provided should also be considered, as service providers are increasingly beginning to bundle technology offerings, delivering fixed-line and wireless connectivity together for more attractive pricing on both options.
Broadband has become so much more than just email and connectivity to the Internet, and with the increasing availability of bandwidth on offer in South Africa, organisations are increasingly taking advantage of technologies such as hosted and cloud services. However, availability of bandwidth and reliability are two different stories, and any organisation wishing to go the hosted route needs to consider the importance of a stable Internet connection.
Creating the required redundancy to ensure appropriate levels of uptime requires a combination of intelligent hardware to incorporate automatic, seamless failover and the provision of a variety of connectivity options to ensure that downtime does not occur. This is imperative to ensuring the success of hosted and cloud services in the South African market.
