ADSL Backup facilities

Having a Broadband connection is no longer a useful facility but has become an
essential part of small businesses needs , so any downtime of the service
virtually grinds the office down to a standstill. If communication is that
urgent, a home user could switch to a dial up connection, but that would be
quite impratical in an office of, say, half a dozen computers being served out
of a router.

The possabilty exists to have another telephone line with ADSL from an
alternative ISP but I can't see how a failure of the primary ISP can have a
seemlesss change over to the other ISP, at the very least it would be a case
of patching cables and then there is the issue of SMTP in the email clients.

ISDN backup from the same ISP is a possability. but when you are connected by
ADSL2 with speeds around 5mb, a drop down to sub 1Mb is going to be a culture
shock. What are others doing to ensure a 100% service; I would love to know.

David Bradley

"David Bradley" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Having a Broadband connection is no longer a useful facility but has
> become an
> essential part of small businesses needs , so any downtime of the service
> virtually grinds the office down to a standstill. If communication is
> that
> urgent, a home user could switch to a dial up connection, but that would
> be
> quite impratical in an office of, say, half a dozen computers being served
> out
> of a router.
>
> The possabilty exists to have another telephone line with ADSL from an
> alternative ISP but I can't see how a failure of the primary ISP can have
> a
> seemlesss change over to the other ISP, at the very least it would be a
> case
> of patching cables and then there is the issue of SMTP in the email
> clients.
>
> ISDN backup from the same ISP is a possability. but when you are connected
> by
> ADSL2 with speeds around 5mb, a drop down to sub 1Mb is going to be a
> culture
> shock. What are others doing to ensure a 100% service; I would love to
> know.
>
> David Bradley

Two offices that I know of in Germany have a satellite broadband link as a
stand-by.
You could also send your staff to starbucks to use their hotspots.

David Bradley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> [...] a home user could switch to a dial up connection, but that would
> be quite impratical in an office of, say, half a dozen computers being
> served out of a router.

It depends what users are doing. If they are mostly doing email then a
dialup replacement for ADSL could be acceptable for a few hours,
especially if that dialup is over ISDN.


> The possabilty exists to have another telephone line with ADSL from
> an alternative ISP but I can't see how a failure of the primary ISP
> can have a seemlesss change over to the other ISP

There is kit available that will share traffic between two ADSL lines.
Also I believe Andrews & Arnold and Nildram both offer Bonded ADSL,
but in this case both lines are to the same ISP.

> at the very least it would be a case of patching cables and then there
> is the issue of SMTP in the email clients.

If you are serious about using two (or more) suppliers then you should
also be looking at running an in-house mail server - at the very least
one that collects email from your ISP and handles delivery for your
staff. In conjunction with some decent switching software the whole
process can be made totally transparent to your users.

Such a mail server would ease the pain of a slow dial-up connection,
since as far as your users were concerned email would be just as fast
as normal (it would take longer to be delivered, but that would be in
the background).


> ISDN backup from the same ISP is a possibility. but when you are
> connected by ADSL2 with speeds around 5mb, a drop down to sub 1Mb is
> going to be a culture shock.

If the alternative is no service then ISDN is a very acceptable
alternative. In real use it actually feels surprisingly fast.


> What are others doing to ensure a 100% service; I would love to know.

Two ADSL lines from separate suppliers. Ideally one of them from an
LLU provider and the other from a BT ADSL based provider. Even better,
bi-directional satellite to a third provider.

The bottom line is that you cannot guarantee 100% service. No-one can
offer that, and no-one should expect it.

Chris

David Bradley wrote:
> Having a Broadband connection is no longer a useful facility but has become an
> essential part of small businesses needs , so any downtime of the service
> virtually grinds the office down to a standstill. If communication is that
> urgent, a home user could switch to a dial up connection, but that would be
> quite impratical in an office of, say, half a dozen computers being served out
> of a router.
>
> The possabilty exists to have another telephone line with ADSL from an
> alternative ISP but I can't see how a failure of the primary ISP can have a
> seemlesss change over to the other ISP, at the very least it would be a case
> of patching cables and then there is the issue of SMTP in the email clients.
>
> ISDN backup from the same ISP is a possability. but when you are connected by
> ADSL2 with speeds around 5mb, a drop down to sub 1Mb is going to be a culture
> shock. What are others doing to ensure a 100% service; I would love to know.

We use the Draytek Vigor 3300v to get nearer to 100% service.

See:- http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/vigor3300v.html

"David Bradley" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)
> Having a Broadband connection is no longer a useful
> facility but has become an essential part of small
> businesses needs , so any downtime of the service
> virtually grinds the office down to a standstill. If
> communication is that urgent, a home user could switch
> to a dial up connection, but that would be quite
> impratical in an office of, say, half a dozen computers
> being served out of a router.
>
> The possabilty exists to have another telephone line with
> ADSL from an alternative ISP but I can't see how a
> failure of the primary ISP can have a seemlesss change
> over to the other ISP, at the very least it would be a
> case of patching cables and then there is the issue of
> SMTP in the email clients.
>
> ISDN backup from the same ISP is a possability. but when
> you are connected by ADSL2 with speeds around 5mb, a drop
> down to sub 1Mb is going to be a culture shock. What are
> others doing to ensure a 100% service; I would love to
> know.
>
> David Bradley

Given that failures of any serious length are relatively rare, I would
suggest ISDN as a backup is perfectly reasonable for the length of time
you would need it at any one time.

Ivor

> Having a Broadband connection is no longer a useful facility but has
> become an essential part of small businesses needs , so any downtime
> of the service virtually grinds the office down to a standstill. If
> communication is that urgent, a home user could switch to a dial up
> connection, but that would be quite impratical in an office of, say,
> half a dozen computers being served out of a router.
>
> The possabilty exists to have another telephone line with ADSL from an
> alternative ISP but I can't see how a failure of the primary ISP can
> have a seemlesss change over to the other ISP, at the very least it
> would be a case of patching cables and then there is the issue of
> SMTP in the email clients.
>
> ISDN backup from the same ISP is a possability. but when you are
> connected by ADSL2 with speeds around 5mb, a drop down to sub 1Mb is
> going to be a culture shock. What are others doing to ensure a 100%
> service; I would love to know.

It really depends on what you are prepared to pay. Leased lines are just one
option.

Peter Crosland

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
David Bradley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>What are others doing to ensure a 100% service; I would love to know.

It's almost impossible to guarantee 100% service. No matter what people
tell you, it's virtually impossible.

So what it boils down to is money. Just how valuable is an Internet feed
to a given business? If it's vitally critical, then they should be willing
to spend the money on something more robust with an SLA. (eg. traditional
leased line circuit)

However, one thing to watch out for is external forces. Even with a
2nd ADSL line, or a leased line, or ISDN, if the copper/fibre is being
supplied by the same telco, then there's an almost 100% chance it's all
in the same duct underground which really won't help when some muppet
from the water/gas/electricity board comes round with a JCB and decides
to dig-up the road )-:

I've seen a case where a company thought they'd be smart and get one
leased line via BT, the other via C&W. C&W didn't have any of their
own copper in the area, so subbed it out to BT ...

A 2nd connection via satellite might well be your only real independent
option, but look out for exactly what you can do over the link - ie. do
they firewall, cache, block certain protocols, etc. and of-course latency
will be high which will make interactive application a bit sluggish. (but
generic web and email will be just fine)

There are solutions that will let you use 2 (or more) Internet
feeds from different ISPs and use them for load-balancing and/or
fail-over. (typically a Linux box running a small iproute2 setup) That
will work quite well - it needs some additional scripting to check that
the lines are alive, and switch the default to the backup line, but it's
not rocket science for a competent person.

A scenario I've used in the past is to have a leased line connection with
ADSL as a backup, but at the end of the day, it's not that important what
you use. A combined ADSL+ISDN router might well be the easiest thing,
but then you are paying rental for an ISDN line to the premises, even
though you may not use it...

A traditional leased line, while many time more expensive than ADSL
does typically come with an SLA. You get what you pay for, and once,
in desperation, I did keep a small company of about 30 people going on
a 56K dial-up. (for several weeks!) It all boils down to what their
expectations are. A 56K dial-up line will handle email, it just takes
longer, obviously. (And these people have an internal email server,
so staff to staff email was unaffected)

And you do have UPSs on each server, switch, *and* each desktop, don't
you? Good. Just checking

Gordon

On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:44:30 +0000 (UTC), (E-Mail Removed)
(Gordon Henderson) wrote:

>In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
>David Bradley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>What are others doing to ensure a 100% service; I would love to know.
>
>It's almost impossible to guarantee 100% service. No matter what people
>tell you, it's virtually impossible.

100% reliability is as impossible to guarantee in advance as it is to
cool matter to absolute zero or to predict the actions of a single
electron.


--
Regards, Paul Herber, Sandrila Ltd. http://www.pherber.com/
Electronics for Visio http://www.electronics.sandrila.co.uk/

In article <e9ntre$6uc$(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed) (Gordon Henderson) writes:
> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
> David Bradley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>What are others doing to ensure a 100% service; I would love to know.
>
> It's almost impossible to guarantee 100% service. No matter what people
> tell you, it's virtually impossible.
>
.....
>
> However, one thing to watch out for is external forces. Even with a
> 2nd ADSL line, or a leased line, or ISDN, if the copper/fibre is being
> supplied by the same telco, then there's an almost 100% chance it's all
> in the same duct underground which really won't help when some muppet
> from the water/gas/electricity board comes round with a JCB and decides
> to dig-up the road )-:

I thought I was fairly well protected having NTL cable as my primary
Internet service coming in underground through the front of the house,
and my backup service by BT ISDN (Home Highway) which came in overhead
at the back. Then a tickle of lightning came down the phone line,
knocked out the Highway box, my router, a few ports on a switch and a
few ethernet cards in PCs. The router was one piece of kit I didn't have
a backup for and, unfortunately, used in common by both connection means.

I agree, it's really difficult to achieve 100% reliability. ISDN is
certainly worth thinking about for back-up, as other have pointed out.
But I suggest you leave it physically unplugged to avoid the problem I
had. Do plug it in once a month, or so, to check your back-up procedure
really works.

Getting beyond 99.9% reliability, each tiny step takes an awful lot of
planning, time, effort and cost, and continuous work checking backup
procedures work. Not for the faint hearted.

--
Tim Clark

"Tim Clark" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:akc5p3-(E-Mail Removed)...
| In article <e9ntre$6uc$(E-Mail Removed)>,
| (E-Mail Removed) (Gordon Henderson) writes:
| > In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
| > David Bradley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
| >
| >>What are others doing to ensure a 100% service; I would love to know.
| >
| > It's almost impossible to guarantee 100% service. No matter what people
| > tell you, it's virtually impossible.
| >
| ....
| >
| > However, one thing to watch out for is external forces. Even with a
| > 2nd ADSL line, or a leased line, or ISDN, if the copper/fibre is being
| > supplied by the same telco, then there's an almost 100% chance it's all
| > in the same duct underground which really won't help when some muppet
| > from the water/gas/electricity board comes round with a JCB and decides
| > to dig-up the road )-:
|
| I thought I was fairly well protected having NTL cable as my primary
| Internet service coming in underground through the front of the house,
| and my backup service by BT ISDN (Home Highway) which came in overhead
| at the back. Then a tickle of lightning came down the phone line,
| knocked out the Highway box, my router, a few ports on a switch and a
| few ethernet cards in PCs. The router was one piece of kit I didn't have
| a backup for and, unfortunately, used in common by both connection means.
|
| I agree, it's really difficult to achieve 100% reliability. ISDN is
| certainly worth thinking about for back-up, as other have pointed out.
| But I suggest you leave it physically unplugged to avoid the problem I
| had. Do plug it in once a month, or so, to check your back-up procedure
| really works.
|
| Getting beyond 99.9% reliability, each tiny step takes an awful lot of
| planning, time, effort and cost, and continuous work checking backup
| procedures work. Not for the faint hearted.
|
| --
| Tim Clark

There is no such thing as 100%. Even expensive CWSS 2 meg links, SHUK circuits
and Kilo/Megastreams have downtime and failures and they are the big boy stakes.
In fact I have even known BT exchanges become 'isolated' from the main network
despite multiple diverse routes being available (Southampton, a few years ago,
lost all 999 and calls out of the exchange. It was only able to serve calls on
the same concentrators.) Just last week either Bournemouth or Southampton
airport (I forget which) lost all it's outside coms and had to divert flights
due to a single fibre being cut.

The crux of all this, what chance does anyone else have!!! ISDN is really
susceptible to lightning . It's a sensitive technology that falls over if you
fart near it. Highway is even worse and being phased out anyway. I've seen
plenty of exchange Dslam cards killed by lightning so my guess that the only
real way to be sure of a back up is POTS and a modem!!!!