Super fast internet connectivity for Cornwall!!

BT have completed a project to open up over 600 new internet access points thorough the country and one of these is in Redruth.

What this means is that businesses now have an alternative to traditional ADSL broadband to provide their internet connectivity

Broadband is a generic term we use to describe ADSL, a product we all now and use to give us fast internet access. 

The two inherent issues with ADSL are;

1.     There are limited products available with service level agreements to suit businesses

2.     The upload and download speeds differ.  This means they are great for downloading content but not so good if you pass data back to the net

Lease lines solve these issues. 

1.     BT leased lines come with a 100% up time SLA so short of a major disaster your connectivity is guaranteed

2.     Lease lines carry the same upload and download speeds

3.     Lease lines are presented on fibre so you can get much faster connection if you need it.  Currently up to 100Mbps!

So why now?

Well, when the fibre for a leased line is installed you pay for the distance covered to the nearest connection to the internet.  For some time this has been Plymouth.  With the access points the distance from Cornish businesses to the exchange is greatly reduced, as is the cost.

This is also good news for the Cornish economy.  With connectivity of this nature larger companies and smaller internet intensive companies will be attracted to Cornwall.

For more information please call 01209 708 608

Disaster Recovery Planning

Any successful company that wants to stand the test of time will at some stage need to implement a disaster recovery or business continuity plan to ensure there is an appropriate procedure to minimise the impact of disasters and general issues on their business.

Personally, I think "Disaster" is quite a strong word and sometimes detracts from the importance of developing a planned procedure for recovery of your business from unforeseen circumstances. Disasters occur once in a long while whilst issues that can affect the normal business operation occur much more frequently.

As a general concept, any business should ask themselves three key questions;

1. How do we detect and identify potential issues that will effect business continuity?


2. How can we prevent these issues from occurring?


3. If these issues occur, how do we recover from them?


This should start you thinking about what if scenarios.

You should also consider the plan to be a progressive instrument for your organisation. There's little point in creating a brilliant plan only to shelve it until there's an issue and finding when you need it most it’s out of date.

You should also test the elements of the plan to make sure your recovery process works. This exercise may also reveal additional issues that you might not have considered which you should feed back into the plan.

Budget is also a major consideration. If you have unlimited funds your options for a resilient plan are boundless, sadly for most of us that's not the case. This is where the knowledge of your computer services provider will help you the most. Anyone worth their weight will have experience with recovery issues and be able to provide assistance and input towards your plan.

The geographical layout of your organisation should also be considered as this can contribute a major factor towards your plan. For example; with adequate data connections, data backup can be made to a separate office, building or facility your company has access too.


Our company website holds a sample of a very basic plan that will give you some idea of where to start. In addition there are some useful resources out there on the web;


http://www.pirantech.co.uk/products-and-services/downloads.html


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster_recovery#General_steps_to_follow_while_creating_BCP.2FDRP