* Weighing support, net uptime tradeoffs
Last time, one of our readers shared his concern about limited availability of business-grade cable modem and DSL Internet access services in all his branch offices as an impediment to using the two services together as a high-availability option.
Another issue to consider is supporting the dual-service environment. The reader says: “Just because the remote office may be small doesn’t mean [users] don’t make noise. Issues do arise with ISPs, of course, and I’m pondering the notion of training staff how to troubleshoot issues in the dual-connection configuration….Not an insurmountable task, but those intermittent problems that occur when there are two paths to take can be quite frustrating!”
The hope, of course, is that with dual routes, the outages will be healed without intervention. It has been our experience that most of the problems with cable or DSL service are internal and do not require intervention on the part of the end-user. On the flip side, the danger is that you don’t know that one of the services has failed until they both do.
The reader then addressed administration, pointing out that there is both administration of the technology/connectivity component of the configuration and administration of the billing to worry about. He indicated, for example, that while his current service provider “has its act together pretty well” in providing centralized billing with account reps to review discrepancies, “there are always incorrect posting of payments or credits, billing that continues after services are disconnected, and other stuff like that. It’s a headache just with the one vendor….With two, it would seem a challenge greater than the sum of its parts.”
On the technology administration side, the reader cites the following as daunting propositions:
* Tracking service availability.
* Maintaining the database of which ISPs have experienced outages.
* Availability reporting and accounting.
* Maintaining the database of which office is using which local ISP and that ISP’s contacts.
* The challenge of working with a multitude of ISPs.
* Doubling the administration on the home-office VPN switches (two for each office).
Again, quite valid points. However, note that, increasingly, broadband network aggregators are emerging to offer one-stop-shop VPN services for branch offices. GoRemote, for example, claims to work with 150 cable and DSL service providers, reselling their services and managing the network and security for you as one, so it appears as if you have a single broadband VPN in all those sites. Not sure if GoRemote has done the dual-mode DSL/cable configuration, but it might be worth asking, if the administration and support issue becomes too complex.
In addition, for telecommuters, it’s likely that users might simply expense a portion of their residential service, rather than having a centralized entity track and manage the connections. Nevertheless, we’ll accept a half-lash with a wet Cat 5 cable on this one.
Administration and support are hidden costs that might outweigh the benefits for some offices, but for others, the added network availability might be worth it.
