Achieving High Availability in Your Network with Aryaka’s SD-WAN

By Klaus Schwegler | November 30, 2023

In the digital era, network downtime is not just an inconvenience; it can be highly disruptive or cause an outright business crisis. High availability in network infrastructure has become a paramount necessity for organizations striving to provide uninterrupted services to their clients and maintain business continuity. The repercussions of network downtime extend beyond mere financial losses, impacting customer trust and brand reputation. Aryaka’s SD-WAN solution SmartConnect emerges as a robust solution, ensuring high network availability and supporting businesses in their quest for uninterrupted excellence. This blog explores the criticality of high availability in networks, the potential impacts of network downtime, and how Aryaka’s SmartConnect offers a resilient solution.

Understanding High Availability in Network Infrastructure

Defining High Availability

High availability in network infrastructure refers to the infrastructure’s ability to remain accessible and operational for a maximum period, minimizing downtime and ensuring continuous service delivery. It is quantified as a percentage of uptime in a given year, with the industry gold standard being “five nines” availability, or 99.999%, translating to just over 5 minutes of downtime annually. Achieving and guaranteeing this level of availability requires a robust network design, incorporating redundancy, failover mechanisms, and meticulous monitoring.

The Cost of Network Downtime

Network downtime can have severe implications for businesses, ranging from lost revenue and productivity to damaged customer relationships and tarnished brand image. For instance, for an e-commerce giant, even a minute of downtime during peak shopping hours can result in millions of dollars in lost sales. Beyond the immediate financial losses, downtime can erode customer trust, leading to long-term reputational damage. The cost of network downtime underscores the critical importance of investing in a high-availability network solution.

Key Components of a High Availability Network

Achieving high availability requires a strategic approach to network design and management. Key components include:

Redundancy: Implementing redundant network paths and hardware to ensure continuous service in the event of a failure.
Failover Mechanisms: Automated processes that seamlessly redirect traffic to operational paths or nodes during an outage.
Load Balancing: Distributing network traffic efficiently across multiple servers or paths to optimize resource use and prevent any single point of failure.
Regular Monitoring and Maintenance: Pro-active monitoring of network performance and regular maintenance to identify and address potential issues before they lead to downtime.

Aryaka’s SmartConnect : Ensuring Network Uptime

Leveraging Global Points of Presence for Redundancy

Aryaka’s SmartConnect capitalizes on its extensive global network, boasting over 40 points of presence (PoPs) across six continents. This vast network ensures redundancy at a global scale, providing multiple paths for data transmission and minimizing the risk of downtime due to regional outages or failures.

Multiple Levels of Redundancy

Aryaka’s commitment to high availability is evident in its multi-faceted approach to redundancy:

First-Mile/Last-Mile Redundancy: Ensuring reliable connections from the customer premises to the nearest Aryaka PoP.
CPE Redundancy: Deploying redundant Customer Premises Equipment to eliminate single points of failure.
PoP-Level Redundancy: Ensuring each PoP has redundant equipment and connections, maintaining network functionality even in the event of hardware failures.

Proactive Monitoring and Support

Aryaka’s 24×7 support and proactive monitoring are pivotal in maintaining high network availability. The network operations center (NOC) continuously monitors network performance, identifying and addressing issues before they can escalate to downtime. This proactive approach ensures that potential problems are resolved swiftly, maintaining uninterrupted network availability.

Benefits of High Network Availability with Aryaka’s SmartConnect

Supporting Critical Business Operations

High network availability is crucial for maintaining continuous business operations, especially for organizations reliant on cloud services, e-commerce platforms, and other online applications. Aryaka’s SmartConnect ensures that these critical services remain accessible, supporting operational continuity and safeguarding business productivity.

Enhancing Customer Experience

In today’s competitive landscape, customer experience is paramount. High network availability ensures that customers can access services and applications without interruption, fostering satisfaction and loyalty. Aryaka’s SmartConnect plays a crucial role in delivering a seamless customer experience, contributing to positive brand perception and customer retention.

Achieving Peace of Mind

Investing in Aryaka’s SmartConnect provides businesses with peace of mind, knowing that their network is resilient, reliable, and capable of supporting continuous operations. This assurance is invaluable, allowing organizations to focus on innovation and growth, confident in the knowledge that their network infrastructure is robust and dependable.

Getting Started with Aryaka’s SmartConnect

Embarking on the journey to high network availability with Aryaka’s SmartConnect is straightforward. Organizations can reach out to Aryaka, request a demo, and experience the unparalleled network availability and reliability firsthand. Aryaka’s team of experts is ready to guide businesses through the integration process, ensuring a smooth transition to a high-availability network solution.

Conclusion

Achieving high availability in your network is not just a technical necessity; it’s a business imperative. Aryaka’s SD-WAN based on SmartConnect has proven itself time and time again to what is achievable in network resilience, ensuring that businesses remain operational, customers remain satisfied, and reputations remain intact. By investing in Aryaka’s SD-WAN, organizations are not just choosing a network solution; they are choosing reliability, performance, and peace of mind. And set the foundation for future SASE deployments.

Request a demo today, and take the first step towards achieving high availability in your network.

About the author

Klaus Schwegler

Klaus is a Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Aryaka Networks for the last five years. He has over 25 years of experience in the networking, data center, and semiconductor industries, having held positions in product and program marketing, customer service, and business development. He held roles with Equinix, Cisco, Philips Lumileds, Infineon, and Mitsubishi Electronics. Originally from Germany, he's made California home for over two decades and speaks German, English, and some basic Italian. He thinks alpine skiing is the best way to disconnect from our hyperconnected world.