Two providers, absolutely...but that's only part of the story. If you want to approach the level of business continuity (because this is not at all about security...this about redundancy and availability) you also need to ensure dual entry points into your building from seperate trunks (coming from different streets, etc) for your fiber or copper. Also you probably want to consider SONET so that you have diverse routing as well. Otherwise one backhoe still gets you, no matter how many carriers you have. Using multiples is fine, using them together makes more sense than just having duplicate capacity lying around doing nothing, however.
The way to look at it is pretty simple: What's the liklihood of a carrier outage? What's the anticipated duration? Can I run with somewhat degraded performance while the outage is being rectified? What is my normal acceptable % utilization? Once you have those answers you know how much "spare" bandwidth you need, and you can split the total between your two (three, four, ad infinitum) carriers of choice. There is no real need to keep a completely seperate pipe sitting there dark. If you anticiptate so many outages in your data communications that having a dark pipe in your pocket is a reasonable plan, you have bigger issues. Large, profitable companies don't throw money away either...and a thing to remember...that SMB may only need a redundant T1 to follow your scenario...while an F500/200/100 likely needs a T3/OC3/OC48 to handle the same business...the needs scale upward as well, folks...so it's not throwaway money no matter who you are. Cheers, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 05/20/2005 07:06:47 AM: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >On Wed, 18 May 2005 09:14:56 EDT, Frank Laszlo said: > > > > > >>You never really want to utilize 100% of your bandwidth, you should > >>always have some "extra" bandwidth "just in case." Sure, there are costs > >>involved, but as a business, surely one could make the decision on > >>whether or not to push it as an expense, or take the risk of only having > >>1 connection. I personally wouldnt split the services between the two > >>ISPs, I would simple have another connection for those "just in case" > >>situations. If a business relies heavily on internet, you shouldnt be > >>worried about a few extra bucks for a redundent connection. Just my 2 cents. > >> > >> > > > >When a "few extra bucks" is $2,000/month, you start looking at it > differently. > > > >(NetworkVirginia commercial pricing is $1175/mo for a T-1 (1. > 5mbits), and if the > >original poster has 3mbits/sec, it's 2 T-1s. So $2,000/mo isn't > just a wild-ass > >guess). > > > > > > You really have to put it into perspective. $2,000/mo to a small company > is a lot of money, sure. But overall, any medium to large size company > will find it a very small investment for an even greater return. The > return being redudency. Which is why i said it woulc be a corporate > decision to make such an investment. If they company can afford it, By > all means they should. > > Regards, > Frank > _______________________________________________ > Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. > Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html > Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/ CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This is a transmission from Kohl's Department Stores, Inc. and may contain information which is confidential and proprietary. If you are not the addressee, any disclosure, copying or distribution or use of the contents of this message is expressly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please destroy it and notify us immediately at 262-703-7000. CAUTION: Internet and e-mail communications are Kohl's property and Kohl's reserves the right to retrieve and read any message created, sent and received. Kohl's reserves the right to monitor messages by authorized Kohl's Associates at any time without any further consent. _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
