On-Demand Services for WAN Backup/
Disaster Recovery
Business continuity and disaster recovery planning is increasingly seen as an essential requirement for enterprise and government networks. The ability to maintain data and voice connectivity in the face of emergencies, natural disasters or terrorist attacks must be part of every network manager’s planning. Having a network backup capability ensures communication support for business continuity efforts, and also reduces the cost of lost revenue, loss of employee productivity and loss of critical infrastructures during a network outage.
Since the recent disaster in the Gulf coast in September 2005, there is especially high visibility of the importance of planning for not just transitory outages from accidents or network problems but also for long-term outages. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Spacenet's satellite services helped major oil companies, retailers and logistics companies quickly replace damaged terrestrial communications networks and resume critical operations and supply-chain communications. VSAT served as an ideal disaster recovery solution since it can be deployed virtually anywhere, does not depend on the local phone infrastructure, can be installed on parked vehicles or docked ships, and can provide support for Internet, voice and commercial transaction data.
The Cisco IP VSAT Module with Spacenet services provides a unique solution for mission-critical disaster recovery/backup networking and other on demand applications, integrated directly with a customer’s existing Cisco router equipment. Leveraging the industry’s most advanced satellite technology, it delivers available-anywhere broadband capabilities that can be used for failover connectivity, digital content delivery, IP telephony, Internet/VPN access and more.
Service Coverage Map and Availability
VSAT service coverage areas for Spacenet include the United States, southern Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Spacenet On-Demand Services
Spacenet’s Connexstar CI On-Demand service provides a low monthly base cost with usage-based billing (either by time used or packets sent) – ideal for backup services. These on-demand options can be used with Connexstar CI data services, VoIP services, or both.
Connexstar CI On-Demand can be deployed almost anywhere and does not
depend on local phone infrastructure, making it an ideal solution for
organizations seeking 100% network uptime. Other benefits of Connexstar
CI On-Demand backup solutions include: physically diverse network path
to terrestrial alternatives, easily and quickly deployable, seamlessly
integrated with primary networks, scaleable and flexible service options.
- Customer configures Cisco VSAT NM as failover networking path
- Optional IPSec Internet backhaul/private line set up to route data from the Spacenet hub
- When satellite service interruption occurs, the VSAT automatically switches over to the failover connection after pre-specified time period
- After terrestrial connectivity is restored, the connection automatically switches back to the primary network
Spacenet's On-Demand services for backup/disaster recovery are available in all of the same speeds as Connexstar CI Data Services. Each package includes a set amount of usage, with additional usage on a per 8-hour increment basis. Spacenet monitors the traffic usage per VSAT and records it in 3-hour usage untis (e.g. a VSAT that was active for 30 minutes will be recorded as 1 usage unit; a VSAT that was active for 3 hours and 15 minutes will be recorded as 2 usage units).
