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Maintaining a reliable and robust network is critical in today’s business environment. As an IT director, understanding the principles of network resiliency, redundancy, and reliability is essential to ensuring continuous operations and minimizing downtime. This blog will explore these concepts and teach you how to implement them effectively in your organization.
Network Resiliency
Network resiliency is the ability of any network to recover quickly from disruptions. Whether it’s a hardware failure, cyberattack, or natural disaster, a resilient network is designed to maintain operations and minimize impact on users by:
- Diverse Facilities: Just as having multiple fire exits in a building increases safety, spreading critical network components across different locations ensures that if one site fails, others can take over. This geographic distribution helps maintain service continuity.
- Diverse Entrances: Similar to having several doors to a building, networks with multiple entrances have different connection points to the internet or external networks. This setup reduces the risk of a single point of failure cutting off connectivity.
- Elimination of Single Points of Failure (SPOFs): SPOFs are vulnerabilities in a network that can cause complete failure if they go down. Relying on a single router or switch means that if it fails, the entire network could be impacted. Identifying and eliminating SPOFs is crucial for resilience.
Network Redundancy
Network redundancy involves having backup components and paths to maintain network functionality when primary systems fail. Think of it as having a spare tire for your car; if one goes flat, you can keep moving by using the spare. Redundancy can include:
- Redundant Services: This means having backup services ready to step in if primary services fail. For example, using two ISPs ensures that if one ISP encounters issues, the other can provide uninterrupted internet access.
- Redundant Paths: Just like having multiple routes to a destination, redundant paths in a network provide alternative ways for data to travel. If one path fails, data can reroute through another, ensuring continuous operation.
- End-to-End Redundancy: True redundancy requires considering the entire journey of data, from the source to the destination. Avoid having all redundant paths converge at a single point, as this would create a new potential point of failure.
Network Reliability
Network reliability measures how consistently a network performs without interruptions. A reliable network offers stable and predictable service. The industry standard for network reliability is often “five nines” (99.999%) availability.
Achieving five nines means the network is down for no more than about 5 minutes and 15 seconds per year. This level of reliability requires careful planning, robust equipment, and regular maintenance.
Achieving High Reliability: To achieve high reliability, networks need robust equipment, comprehensive redundancy, and proactive monitoring. Every component and connection should be evaluated to ensure high-performance standards are met.
Considering Upstream Carriers
While building a resilient and redundant network within your organization is crucial, evaluating the reliability of upstream carriers and external providers is equally important. Here’s why:
- Upstream Carrier Dependence: Networks depend on upstream carriers to connect to the broader internet and other networks. If these carriers lack reliability or redundancy, their failures can cascade down to your network, causing outages despite your internal measures.
- Dual Entrances and Convergence: Having dual entrances to a network facility doesn’t guarantee resilience if both paths eventually merge at a single point. It’s essential to ensure that these paths remain separate and don’t converge into a single facility or connection that could become a point of failure.
- Central Office Vulnerabilities: Even with diverse paths to a central office, it could be a single point of failure. Without redundancy in the central office’s equipment and connections, a failure there could disrupt services for all connected users.
Comprehensive Network Strategies
To build a network that is truly resilient, redundant, and reliable, consider these strategies:
- Geographic Diversity: Spread critical network components across multiple locations. This distribution helps isolate failures and maintain operations even if one site is compromised.
- Multiple Connection Paths: Implement physically diverse paths for data and connections, ensuring they do not converge at any single point that could become a failure risk.
- Reliable Upstream Partners: Choose upstream carriers that offer high resilience and redundancy. Review their capabilities to ensure they align with your network’s reliability goals.
- Central Office Redundancy: Ensure central offices or data centers you rely on have their own redundancy and failover mechanisms. This includes diverse paths and equipment within these facilities.
- Holistic End-to-End Analysis: Regularly review your entire network setup to identify and eliminate potential single points of failure. Implement redundancy where necessary to maintain uninterrupted services.
- Continuous Monitoring and Maintenance: Proactively test your network components and connections. Regular maintenance and troubleshooting can prevent failures and ensure quick recovery when they occur.
Achieving a resilient, redundant, and reliable network or critical service (like 911) requires a comprehensive, end-to-end approach by everyone. By designing diverse paths, equipment, and facilities throughout the connection chain, customers can safeguard their networks against common failures, keeping the business running smoothly.
Stay vigilant, keep learning, and always plan for the unexpected.
To better understand affordable options that provide your commercial facility with current NG911-compliant solutions (with full backward compatibility to E911 solutions) and eliminate future technology changeouts, speak with one of the engineers at 911inform for a no-obligation consultation. Call 833-333-1911 or visit http://911inform.com.
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Mark J. Fletcher, ENP
VP Public Safety Solutions at 911inform
(Direct) 973-826-9111
The World According to Fletch . . . 