From our partner, Cradlepoint
4-minute read
Today, we depend on being able to access the Internet matter where we are, no matter what kind of device we’re using. One of our partners, Cradlepoint, helps makes this possible.
Using a single cloud platform with wireless edge routers that connect fixed and mobile sites, vehicles, field forces and loT devices over LTE and 5G cellular networks, Cradlepoint can provide effective solutions when high-performance internet is essential, but not always accessible to employees.
When everyone started working remotely, teleconferencing and other high-bandwidth technologies proved unstable and unreliable for people living in some areas. Working with Cradlepoint, innovative solutions were found – solutions that continue to make sense for organisations moving forward.
A couple of examples:
In one school district, where families needed better connection performance, students were provided with private LTE routers. Elsewhere, school buses were turned into hotspots and parked in areas where students faced connectivity challenges.
For police departments, where lives often depend on accurate location data, Cradlepoint offers a bulletproof solution. Precision, vehicle-integrated GPS provides location-based data for computer-aided dispatch and fleet management applications and helps locate officers in need. Although not life and death, the same technology is invaluable for logistics companies.
In short, reliable connectivity is critical to just about every organisation, service delivery and training organisation. With its wireless-optimized software-defined networking, and dual modems able to provide nonstop reliability across one or more cellular networks, Cradlepoint is the number one choice for many IT specialists.
Here’s what Cradlepoint has to say about connectivity in its “Wireless strategies for business continuity gain importance as enterprise expand IoT, cloud, and other technologies” blog post, written by Dee Dee Pare
“ Our evolving world has seen uninterrupted connectivity become a business requirement. With cloud services, IoT devices, and increasing mobility putting a strain on wired network architecture, more organizations are looking to adopt a wireless wide-area network (WAN) to keep a competitive edge.
An enterprise needs to be proactive about network failover. It is no longer enough to solely rely on wired lines for backup connectivity and redundancy. Today availability, reliability, and bandwidth are the three mandatory capabilities for any network failover solution.
Network Availability
Historically, enterprises added multiple wired connections for network failover. This might seem like a good way to ensure internet uptime, but it doesn’t always provide the guaranteed connectivity that organizations now require.
When adding a failover wired connection to a fixed location, typically the new secondary link enters the facility through the same trench as the primary connection. The enterprise is putting itself at risk of network interruption due to accidents during construction or other maintenance.
Another option is to install a new wire through a different entrance, but that costs time and money that enterprises often can ill afford. A more effective and economical solution is a high-performance wireless failover connection. This ensures diversity by providing a secondary connection that can’t be physically interrupted.
Network Reliability
When network service is interrupted, reliable management access is required to securely diagnose and fix any problems. To alleviate the need for an onsite IT team, Cradlepoint’s NetCloud Service and endpoints enable Out-of-Band Management (OOBM) so IT teams can troubleshoot issues remotely. Having a direct connection from an LTE adapter’s console port to the primary router at a branch location enables network managers to diagnose and sometimes fix problems even if the wired link is not available.
Life Storage, with hundreds of self-storage locations across the U.S., struggled with reliable connectivity. Its third-party-managed, USB-based modems could not handle the growing number of connected devices that helped drive business. After deploying Cradlepoint’s NetCloud Service and branch routers, Life Storage’s IT team has been able to remotely control all devices and connections.
Network Bandwidth
Even when a network failover link kicks in, businesses still require sufficient bandwidth to support the transfer of all required company data. With an all-in-one branch networking solution, you can switch between a wired and wireless connections without degrading bandwidth, ensuring business continuity.
Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) technologies support bandwidth aggregation and traffic segregation between both wired and wireless WAN links. With lower-bandwidth LTE connections, SD-WAN allows IT teams to set configurations that ensure critical data always has precedence on the wireless failover link. With higher-bandwidth Gigabit-Class LTE and 5G connections, all traffic can continue to flow over the backup link.
Wireless failover allows businesses in any industry to never skip a beat.”
For more about wireless strategies for addressing enterprise networking challenge, please read the WANs Without Wires white paper.
If you would like to learn more about how mobile connectivity solutions can augment your current network capabilities, please feel free to contact us at [email protected] or (416) 429-0796 or 1.877.238.9944 (Toll Free).
