When we talk with network administrators about their evenings, weekends and vacations, they tell us that even during their personal time they remain “on alert” in case of emergency.
Their most significant personal time interruptions involve unplanned network outages. These outages usually cause significant loss of critic applications at some or all locations, and are followed by a flurry of testing to evaluate what areas of the network are effected. After time spent assessing the probable cause of the problem, it often comes down to the loss of WAN services provided by their MPLS/ISP provider.
Next Step: Usually this involves looking for the 1-800 number or support email address that will be needed to open a trouble ticket for the carrier providing the WAN service. Here’s what typically follows:
- You connect via phone or text to a support person and they give you an estimated time when you will hear back from a support person. This timeframe can vary greatly depending on carrier and/or the problem and usually ranges from 30 to 120 minutes.
- If you are called back by a lower tier support person, he or she may ask you to spend time troubleshooting components that you have already eliminated as a potential problem. After this process you may need to talk to a higher tier support person, resulting in more on hold time and/or another call back.
- You receive an automated voice prompt or automated email response indicating they are aware of a network outage and they are actively working on a resolution, however no exact time of resolution is given. You may opt to wait for a support agent, however in these cases the support center cannot even come close to handling the call volume for a wide spread outage. So you get to rock out to elevator music for the next 10 to 60 minutes while fielding calls from basically everyone in the office wondering what you did to “break the network.”
- The carrier technical support indicates “everything looks good on their end” and will need to dispatch a tech or another company’s tech to troubleshoot a possible last mile problem to the affected site(s). Usually a two to four hour window will be given.
- Once the network has been restored, you probably need to reboot routers, servers, PCs and possibly undo the temporary network work arounds you created to try to provide temporary network functionality.
If you’ve been supporting a WAN for any length of time, you can probably relate to this list plus add more bullets reliving old memories/nightmares.
When Ecessa works with our partners and their customers, we look to design a WANworX solution that provides seamless uptime of applications via diverse carrier networks that complement each other. We prepare in advance for the inevitable: all networks will fail or degrade to an unacceptable service level at one point or another. Your goal is to be Never Down and have your applications always perform optimally. By intelligently planning how business will continue when the inevitable happens, an outage becomes a notification email to your phone about the event, indicating traffic has been rerouted with no data loss or application disruption, instead of a business-stopping fire drill that screws up your day, night or weekend. With seamless uptime, you win.
At Ecessa, we believe your personal time should be exactly that: worry-free and personal.
For more information about WAN Virtualization or to schedule a demonstration of Ecessa’s WANworX WAN Virtualization technology, visit www.ecessa.com/wanworxwv, call Ecessa at 800.669-6343 or fill out the form below for a free consultation.