Everything is bound to fail at some point—even your network infrastructure. That’s why building a resilient network infrastructure ensures your systems can withstand disruptions, recover swiftly, and keep your business running smoothly. Find in this guide how to do this in style!
Key takeaways:
- Downtime triggers customer dissatisfaction and revenue loss.
- Businesses can reduce the negative impacts of downtime by investing in resilient network infrastructure.
- Resilient network infrastructure contains numerous key elements, including scalable equipment and redundancy/failover mechanisms.
- Numerous practices are indispensable to designing resilient network infrastructure, including segmentation and regular assessments.
In today’s digital world, there is simply no room for downtime. Whether a brief network hiccup or prolonged outages, every minute of unavailability can lead to frustrated customers and a tarnished reputation. The stakes are high—constant downtime disrupts operations and fosters poor customer experiences.
According to recent findings by Zendesk, 73% of customers are likely to switch to a competitor after a single bad experience. This underscores the importance of fortifying your networking infrastructure to ensure reliability, enhance customer satisfaction, and maintain your competitive edge.
However, to get the most out of your fortification efforts, you must be familiar with essentials like the key components of a resilient infrastructure and recommended practices for achieving them. Continue reading to explore them in detail!
Key components of a resilient network infrastructure
A resilient network infrastructure should have essential components enhancing its ability to withstand disruptions and recover from failure, including the following:
1. Redundancy and failover mechanisms
Redundancy and failover mechanisms are vital elements that minimize downtime and ensure the availability of crucial services during disruptions and failures. Redundancy refers to creating duplicate components, paths, and systems. On the other hand, failover mechanisms enable a network to automatically switch to a redundant system as soon as the primary components fail.
Redundancy and failover mechanisms are indispensable to modern businesses, as they are crucial in minimizing downtime. According to recent statistics published by “Forbes,” large organizations can lose up to $9,000 per minute due to downtime, highlighting the critical need for a robust infrastructure to maintain continuous operations.
2. Scalable network equipment for businesses
Scalable network equipment for businesses includes software and hardware tailored to grow with a company and adapt to changing needs without requiring a complete overhaul of the existing infrastructure. Examples of scalable network equipment include stackable routers and modular switches.
A resilient network infrastructure with scalable networking equipment is flexible and adaptable. It can adapt quickly to increasing demand as your business grows without requiring you to start from scratch. Plus, it allows you to scale incrementally, which is more convenient and cost-effective.
3. Robust security measures
Small and mid-size businesses lose thousands of dollars to cyberattacks annually. Resilient network infrastructure comes with robust security measures that stave off financial losses and other issues caused by cyberattacks. Robust measures cover practices, strategies, and technologies whose primary goal is to protect a business network from unauthorized access, data breaches, and cyber threats.
Firewalls, encryption, and access control are good examples of robust measures that optimize the security of resilient network infrastructure. These measures protect networks, preserve data integrity, and neutralize threats before they cause extensive downtime.
Best practices for designing resilient networks
Experts must adhere to specific guidelines and strategies when designing resilient business networks. Each element is crucial in facilitating resilient network infrastructure’s overall security, reliability, and performance. Let’s explore some of them in detail.
1. Network segmentation
Network segmentation involves dividing a business network into distinct segments or sub-networks. In other words, it’s the act of isolating certain systems, networks, and devices from the rest of the network. After segmentation, each sub-network or segment is managed independently.
Segmentation isolates vital assets and data and mitigates their exposure to attacks. If cybercriminals gain unauthorized access to specific segments, the rest of the network will remain safe and unaffected, ensuring continuity of service delivery.
2. Regular network assessments
Business networks need to be assessed regularly. This is the best way to check and optimize their security, performance, and resilience. During a network assessment, experts analyze everything from crucial infrastructure and devices to security posture and traffic patterns.
Your company should always conduct regular network assessments. They are key to identifying and resolving vulnerabilities before they cause issues like downtime. Moreover, the insights from an extensive assessment can help identify bottlenecks that undermine network performance.
3. Disaster recovery planning
While designing resilient infrastructure, experts develop detailed plans for promptly restoring network services after an event like a successful cyberattack or hardware failure. This disaster recovery planning encompasses numerous key aspects, including risk assessment, offsite backup, and failover/load balancing.
Disaster recovery plans must be tested and optimized frequently for maximum effectiveness. While tests are underway, stakeholders must simulate disaster scenarios and test the recovery process’s efficiency. Businesses must also hire professionals to train employees on effective disaster recovery planning and execution.
Implementing Unisol’s solutions for network resilience
Unisol International offers a comprehensive approach to implementing the right solutions for network resilience, which include the following:
- Customized network design services
Unisol International focuses on building highly customized networks tailored to each business’s unique needs. Before embarking on design and implementation, the company’s experts conduct a thorough needs assessment and consult with the right stakeholders. If an organization has existing network infrastructure, the team will analyze it extensively and identify prevailing flaws and bottlenecks. - Deployment and project management
After creating a tailored network design, the experts proceed to deployment and project management. This sensitive process involves numerous critical phases, from pre-deployment planning and procurement to installation and testing. These phases allow the team to finish the project in good time and identify pertinent issues as early as possible. - Ongoing support and maintenance
For optimum resilience, business network infrastructure must be monitored and maintained frequently. Fortunately, Unisol International provides ongoing support and maintenance services. The team monitors your business network 24-7 and issues prompt alerts whenever there’s a problem. Additionally, through ongoing monitoring, the experts identify opportunities for optimization and ensure all components are in tip-top shape through regular updates.
Upgrade to resilient network infrastructure today with Unisol International
The benefits of a resilient business network are unlimited, from optimized service delivery to enhanced longevity. However, designing and implementing resilient network infrastructure requires specialized knowledge and extensive expertise.
Unisol International, with its years of experience, stands as a leader in providing robust, scalable, and secure networking solutions tailored to meet the unique needs of businesses across various industries.
Our experts will help you identify and implement customized network solutions guaranteed to boost your network’s resilience and support your business objectives. We also offer professional ongoing maintenance and support services for resilient network infrastructure.
Contact Unisol International today to discuss customized network solutions that enhance resilience and support your business objectives.