uptime | FIBERTOWN BLOG

A critical element for any business is network connectivity. In fact, a past Gartner study found that it costs businesses on average $5,600 per minute of downtime. Of course, this is an average, and the exact number fluctuates by industry and size of the business. Even with those considerations, the message is clear – lost connectivity is expensive! By using blended bandwidth inside our data centers, we ensure you have multiple sources of internet at all times, giving you peace of mind and cost-effective internet.

How Our Blended Bandwidth Works

At FIBERTOWN, we peer with the best internet service providers (ISPs) in the Houston and Bryan, Texas areas. By combining these ISPs in a single contract, we’re able to offer our data center and colocation customers reliable, fast connectivity.

Our blended bandwidth always comes from at least 3 providers, guaranteeing redundancy. If one service provider goes down, others are available as an immediate path for your data.

And our Forward-Looking Glass always allows your information to find and use the fastest path.

As an example of speed, our redundant, path-diverse points to point between our Bryan and Houston data centers average 2.3 milliseconds. (That’s fast!)

Benefits of FIBERTOWN’s Blended Bandwidth

Besides speed, there are other benefits to this service for our customers.

Resiliency. Unlike most carriers who build only one entrance for internet into their facilities, FIBERTOWN’s data centers have at least 2 fiber entries. And that means increasing resiliency. For example, if a utility crew accidentally cuts the fiber on one end of our building, you still have an internet connection because the other fiber entrance is not affected.

100% uptime. Due to the multiple carriers and multiple fiber entrances, we maintain 100% uptime SLA. The reality is that ISPs go down often and for a host of reasons – maintenance, card failures, weather, road construction, power outages, or a random guy with a shovel or backhoe cuts fiber.

By FIBERTOWN using multiple ISPs, you don’t go down when one ISP goes down. The very nature of our blended bandwidth keeps you connected.

Circuit installation speed. Most ISPs take 30 days or more to get a connection to a customer. They must configure it, plan capacity, and physically run the cable. With FIBERTOWN, though, we can have you connected in 2 weeks or less. (Sometimes, we can even do it the same day!)

Temporary bandwidth. Due to our connectivity infrastructure already being in place, we also can offer temporary bandwidth. We can configure and install up to a 10Gbps circuit quickly, even if you need it for only a few months.

Secondary or backup circuit. The reality is – If you’re a data center customer, you’re already preparing for the worst. You refuse to let power failures, winter storms, or hurricanes catch you unprepared! That’s why we encourage data center customers to consider FIBERTOWN’s blended bandwidth for its primary or secondary circuit. It’s the best way to plan for the worst.

But, We Don’t Only Offer Blended Bandwidth…

We strive to be a one-stop solution for our customers. Because we have strong, long-standing relationships with other technology providers, we often can assist with other needs.

If you’re having difficulty connecting to another data center or to the cloud of your choice, we can help!

Worried about cybersecurity? We’re only a phone call away.

Are you in need of new hardware? Talk with us.

Want help with monitoring your internet connectivity outside of our data centers? We offer monitoring services and would be glad to assist you. (Our NOCs are staffed by experts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.)

We’re proud of our blended bandwidth capabilities, but we’ve worked hard to be helpful in other ways too.

FIBERTOWN is Ready with Blended Bandwidth

To summarize, blended bandwidth is a must when your business relies on internet connectivity (which is most organizations these days!). With our blended bandwidth, we’ve peered with multiple ISPs to offer you a redundant, reliable, and fast way to move data. By “blending” ISPs, we’re able to reduce costs for you too. In other words, you save money because we’ve negotiated with the individual providers.

If you have questions or want to learn more about our blended bandwidth (or other services mentioned in this article), use this form to contact us.

As a company grows, the need for data protection grows too. A data center, which is a space, building, or group of buildings designed to hold computer systems and other necessary parts, becomes an important investment for growing organizations. The protection a data center affords to both hardware and, consequently, data is vital and can’t be overlooked.

Companies can choose to construct their own private data centers, often called on-premise or onsite data centers (when built on or near company property). Or, organizations can choose colocation centers where a group of companies share the space and services provided by the data center personnel. A colocation center, like ours in Houston or in Bryan-College Station, Texas, is a great option for most companies because of the cost-effectiveness and a staff solely dedicated to data protection.

Whether your organization is migrating to a data center for the first time or it’s changing from one data center to another, there are points to consider before moving.

Read below for our suggestions. And contact us if you have questions about our Bryan or North Houston colocation centers.

100% Uptime

Every data center has a service level agreement (SLA). This document defines two important aspects – the types of service provided by the center to your company and the amount of downtime allowed by the data center without penalties.

At FIBERTOWN, we offer 100% uptime SLA for power, cooling, and bandwidth services. Most other data centers are 99.999% or “five-nines” as it’s often called. This means, they allow 5.256 minutes of downtime every year (525,600 minutes X .00001).

Our 100% uptime in our SLA makes us stand out from the competitors. And this leads to another point for consideration.

What Uptime Truly Means in the SLA

For FIBERTOWN, our SLA covers power, cooling, and networking. Just like our 100% uptime, this guarantee of all three critical components gives us an edge on our competitors.

We make sure power and cooling and network are up and going, rather than just one of the three. After all, it doesn’t matter if you have power but no networking. You are still unable to communicate with your equipment, which means business halts. And the same is true for networking but no power.

When shopping for a data center, read the SLA carefully to understand what is considered uptime for that provider. And, what components will be guaranteed to be operational – power, cooling, and networking or only one of the three?

Not Happy with Services at Your Current Data Center

This is a common situation for companies. Your organization grows quickly or, perhaps, you didn’t read the SLA fine print. Either way, you sign a contract with a data center and realize it doesn’t meet all of your needs and expectations. While we won’t encourage you to break a contract with another center, there are steps you and your next data center personnel can take to ramp up protection and services until your contract ends with your previous provider.

For example, at FIBERTOWN, we can ramp up services for 90 days prior to a full contract going into effect. The first advantage, you only pay for what you are using. You schedule your move and only pay for those cabinets you migrate to until you get out of your other provider’s agreement.

This leads to the second advantage of a 90-day ramp-up. You get to move in over time. Not a rushed move. Instead, a calculated, well-planned move.

To summarize, we aim to be flexible. Tell us what you need, and we can help find solutions.

As Joe Langston, our Vice President of Operations, says, “Our goal is to aid in our customer’s success.”

Don’t be unhappy with your current provider, or stay for longer than you need. The security of your company’s data is at stake.

What Questions Do You Have for FIBERTOWN?

Choosing a data center and moving there are hard. Studying the SLA and having the tough conversations you must have if a data center is not providing quality protection – none of these things are easy.

And while we can’t make the move easy, we at FIBERTOWN believe data center migration can be easier. We work to make your migration to one of our two locations smooth…a walk in the park.

Tag: uptime

FIBERTOWN’s Blended Bandwidth