How Agencies Stay Connected When a Local ISP Goes Down

Virtualization is changing the way agencies access information, to the point where many organizations simply choose to store their data infrastructure in the cloud and access it as needed. While this is extremely convenient and helps to keep your in-house wiring to a minimum, it also puts you at the mercy of your business’s Internet connection, which means the slightest Internet hiccup could spell trouble.

Imagine this scenario; you have your entire IT infrastructure hosted in the cloud, including your mission-critical applications and data. This information is required in order for operations to continue. Now, imagine that your local Internet service provider has suffered a catastrophic outage for your region due to some unforeseeable circumstance. Now, your office is left with no Internet access.

This presents a problem with no clear resolution, especially if most of your infrastructure is accessible only via the cloud. Unless you also have a backup of your infrastructure stored locally on your in-house network, you won’t be able to access any information stored on the Internet.

One simple way to bypass the problems associated with a downed Internet connection is to equip your office with 4G-enabled laptops or smartphones that can act as temporary hotspots. However, if you do this, you need to find out whether your phone carrier supports this immense amount of data expenditure. In many cases, it’s better to just let your team work remotely if they’re capable of doing so.

The most reliable choice would be to have any team member that can work remotely to do so until the problem is resolved. Working remotely during the incident might be a valid opportunity to eliminate downtime associated with your Internet access. As reported by ZDNet:

“It's true that businesses are increasingly allowing for remote work and disaster planning is a good argument for it. It may even be worthwhile as an exercise. Require employees to have a plan for working offsite and schedule a day for everyone, or perhaps one department at a time, to do so. You might learn something about productivity while you're at it. 9/11 proved that it's possible your offices may be out of commission for a while. Do you really want to have to make up your plans on the spot when that happens?”

If your business needs help implementing technology to keep your team connected at all times, SMART Services can help. We can work out ways to give your employees access to information regardless of the circumstances, so you can keep downtime to a minimum. In addition, we can provide your business with the technology solutions required to ensure that your team can work off-site when needed.

For example, a virtual private network (VPN) allows your team to securely access your business's sensitive information from any wireless connection, allowing your team to access mission-critical files even if the in-house wireless network is down.

If you’re concerned about not being able to communicate with your team while they’re off-site, we can make it much easier by helping you implement a unified communications solution designed to work seamlessly, as long as you have an Internet connection. You can communicate in real time with both instant messaging and Voice over Internet Protocol telephony solutions that will make you feel like your team is right next door.

For more information on how SMART Services can use the knowledge we've gained from 25 years of working with independent agents to help your agency, give us a call at 586 258-0650 .