As businesses increasingly shift to the digital landscape and the cloud, internet failover solutions become indispensable for round-the-clock, seamless operations.
Most companies can’t afford any downtime—one study estimates the average cost of downtime for large enterprises to be a staggering $14,056 per minute. Beyond the immediate financial repercussions, the long-term impact on customer trust and potential exposure to data breaches can be catastrophic for any business.
In this article, we’ll explore how internet failover solutions safeguard your operations, ensuring uninterrupted service even in the face of connectivity failures. We’ll also explore an internet failover solution that could help with 100% uptime for your business.
What Is an Internet Failover Solution?
It’s a backup solution that keeps your business connected when your primary internet goes down. It lets you ‘failover to’ a secondary connection without a glitch.
To maintain continuous operations, businesses typically rely on either multiple internet service providers (ISPs) that seamlessly switch between each other or a dedicated backup line to ensure redundancy.
Pro Tip: Though the terms “internet failover” and “backup internet” are often used interchangeably, they represent distinct approaches.
- Backup internet is a reactive measure, where the secondary connection is engaged only after the primary connection fails.
- Failover internet is a proactive, automated system embedded within the network infrastructure. It ensures that, as long as at least one connection remains active, the business stays continuously connected to the internet without interruption.
How Does an Internet Failover Solution Work?
An internet failover system works as a safety net for your business internet. Here’s how it works:
- Multiple WAN Ports: The failover solution consists of a router that’s equipped with multiple wide area network (WAN) ports. Each port connects to a different internet service provider (ISP) or a different type of connection like DSL, fiber, or wireless.
- Seamless Switch: When your primary connection goes down, the router automatically switches to the secondary connection without any downtime.
Why Does Your Business Need a ‘Backup’ Connection?
Your primary internet connection is the backbone of your daily business operations, serving as the default and most trusted method for connectivity. As such, it may seem redundant or even unnecessary to invest in a secondary connection that you may rarely use.
But your core business operations rely on the internet and the cost of an outage, according to a recent research study, may be too big to recoup.
Some reasons to opt for a failover solution:
- Stay online, always: Even during routine network repairs or unexpected outages, your business keeps running with minimal downtime and zero revenue loss.
- Smooth data transfers: Sensitive data flows seamlessly without a hitch, as your connection stays uninterrupted.
- Unwavering reliability for customers: No matter what happens, your customers can always count on you to be there.
- Productivity at its peak: Employees can continue working without skipping a beat, even if the primary network goes down.
- Regular data backups: Backups happen without delay, ensuring your data is always safe, no matter the circumstances.
Use Cases for Internet Failover Solutions
While almost all businesses can benefit from using an internet failover solution, some industries running critical operations need to always be online. Some specific examples:
1. Medical Offices
With an internet failover solution, patients at medical offices experience a streamlined and more efficient healthcare journey across various touchpoints, including:
- Seamless appointment scheduling without delays.
- Prompt, responsive communication with healthcare providers.
- Immediate access to critical departments such as billing.
Network redundancy plays a pivotal role in ensuring uninterrupted service by maintaining data flow even during system failures, enhancing operational reliability. Such continuity is essential for delivering consistent, high-quality patient care.
2. Restaurants
Here’s how an internet failover system can benefit restaurants, ensuring operational continuity and a superior customer experience:
- No disruption in any transaction processing as your POS system always remains online.
- Online orders are processed without interruption, keeping revenue streams intact.
- Tracking inventory, order placements, and supply chain management always remain operational.
- Internal communication systems remain up and running, whether it’s for managing schedules, processing payroll, or coordinating with kitchen staff.
3. Auto Dealerships
Downtime for auto dealerships can impact sales and revenue, but also undermine client-customer relationships. An internet failover solution can help with:
- Maintaining access to CRM and inventory management systems even during internet outages.
- Uninterrupted processing of online sales and financing applications.
- Prevention of operational delays in ordering parts and scheduling service.
- Seamless management of internal communication and collaboration tools across all departments.
4. Professional Offices
For professional offices, such as law firms or insurance companies, backup internet provides reliable connectivity maintaining client service, business operations, and data security. For such businesses, an internet failover solution:
- Guarantees continuous access to cloud-based software, preventing delays in case management, claims processing, and document storage.
- Ensures secure and continuous data transfer, minimizing the risk of non-compliance and data breaches by maintaining access to sensitive information.
- Keeps billing and payment processing systems operational, preventing disruptions to revenue flow and delays in payment processing.
- Maintains access to internal project management tools, letting team members continue working on sensitive files without delay.
Invest in a Best-In Class Internet Failover Solution
Vivant’s SmartCONNECT internet failover solution ensures uninterrupted connectivity for businesses across all industries. It not only automatically switches to a secondary connection when your primary internet fails, but also actively monitors your primary connection for up to five minutes until service is restored.
This robust, proactive approach makes SmartCONNECT a superior choice, offering unparalleled reliability compared to other failover solutions.
Reach out to us today to discover how SmartCONNECT can fortify your business’s connectivity, keeping operations smooth and uninterrupted.
