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5 Steps to Minimize the Impact of Internet Outages for Your Business

Loss of power, internet, or data can be crippling for most businesses. According to joint research by Cisco and AppDynamics, internet downtime can cost a small to medium enterprise between $8,580 and $74,000 per hour. For larger corporations, the margins are higher. In 2013, a 30-minute outage for Amazon outage resulted in a $2 million loss based on their quarterly revenue report.

Business executives may need to put in measures to contain and counteract the downtime resulting from an internet access blackout. Here are five ways to prevent network downtime for your organization.

1. Invest in a Redundant Network Connection

Some businesses can manage a loss in connectivity for some hours. A large portion of organizations depends on having constant internet access. You may need to be always prepared for the worst. A redundant connection involves an additional line to your primary network, majorly from different internet providers. It means that if the primary fiber network drops, the other additional line can pick up the slack.

2. Opt for Business Only Broadband

Some business executives may try to find ways to cut costs by opting for lower-grade hardware and internet connectivity plans. Slow connections and frequent outages become the order of the day. You are better off investing in quality equipment alongside an enterprise-level network to provide dedicated internet access for your business. The cost of losing productivity resulting from the slow connections and downtime is higher compared to the money you use to upgrade your network.

3. Have a Backup Power Plan

Every building experiences a power outage from time to time. Unexpected power failures may cause your staff to lose hours of unsaved work with your business going offline. A more robust solution is to invest in uninterruptible power supply (UPS) devices. The UPS utilizes battery power to run your connected systems for a few hours, without any noticeable interruption for the users. The best option would be to invest in an automatic backup generator to tide you through unplanned electrical outages.

4. Switch to Cloud or Colocation Services

Arguably every region in the United States has experienced a prolonged power outage over the last few years. Natural disasters such as hurricanes, lightning storms, flash floods can destroy the office building hosting your on-location servers. This can result in a widescale loss of essential data, with the odds of your business recovering from such events being slim to none.

Cloud servers in colocation and off-premises data centers can help create multiple backup copies in diverse geological regions, preventing data loss for the business. More businesses are turning towards cloud services to secure the data, with investments in cloud IT infrastructure expected to reach $99.9 billion by 2023.

5. Have Regular Inspections to Identify Internal and External Weaknesses

You can request your business internet providers to conduct a thorough probe of the frequent outages. Determine external and internal threats to your internet downtime. If the internet providers can’t solve issues on their end, consider switching to a new ISP.

Internet downtime can be extremely costly for your business. The steps above can help protect your business data and maintain your office operations during outages. For more information on how to better secure your internet connection, reach out to Bluebird Network.

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