South African Internet Service Providers have battled to offer the type of availability and redundancy required by the corporate market because of their reliance on Telkom, and the susceptibility to several points of failure on a single network. This is according to Stuart Hardy, General Manager of Access, a division of Internet Solutions (IS).
"To ensure uninterrupted access to the Internet, many companies have chosen to create additional links with several ISP`s in order to create multiple routes to the Internet. Even though this has been successful to some extent, there are far too many shortfalls in the solution that prevent it from being ideal," says Hardy.
IS has developed an alternative - an independent network that is able to offer maximum availability to corporates without having to make use of services from other providers.
Named IS2, the second network is a mirror of the current IS network and enables corporates to enjoy uninterrupted Internet connectivity with the additional benefits of increased redundancy and network availability, through an entirely independent and fully inclusive network.
"IS2 has been strategically positioned at a remote site in New Doornfontein (NDF), independent of the Internet Solution`s network based in Rosebank (RBA). This allows it to leverage off one of the two largest exchanges in the country (NDF and RBA), and has close access to its major peering partners," Hardy says.
IS2 has its own computer facilities and is reliant on its own redundant infrastructure to provide the highest level of uptime, guaranteeing an availability of over 99.95% - the market average is 99.4% - which can mean the difference between 22 minutes downtime and 40 hours downtime.
According to Hardy, other benefits of IS2 include greater economies of scale and one common consolidated support interface.
"When purchasing bandwidth from a single provider, economies of scale are leveraged since the client is now obtaining all their Internet access through a single ISP, thereby being able to realise financial benefit. Another significant advantage is the internal IT department of the client now only has to deal with one support interface for all Internet and E-Commerce initiatives. This results in the ability to deliver the highest levels of service required by South African corporates in today`s market," he concludes.
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