Business Continuity
Organizations depend on reliable and secure communications to keep mission-critical applications always running. Just a few minutes of downtime can lead to lost revenue and productivity and can put the safety of the public and employees at risk. Having a network backup capability ensures communication support for business continuity efforts.
To keep operations running in the event of a telecommunications disruption, Spacenet’s satellite services provide a “Non-stop Networking” solution that provides continuity of communications and ensures critical applications stay online. By combining the best of both common carrier technologies (DSL, cable, T-1, fixed wireless etc.) and the latest in VSAT satellite services, organizations can benefit from a highly reliable high availability network that ensures telephone and critical data applications always stay online.
Case Study
Big Box Retailer: Digital Signage Enables Business Continuity
Requirement
The mega retailer’s marketing department had a plan to deploy multiple flat panel displays in stores to reinforce their brand and increase sales. The challenge was that the marketing group was competing for budget dollars with the IT department who had a mandate to implement a business continuity solution to support critical transactions for a large multi-lane point of sale system, as well as back-office and applications.
Solution
To meet both requirements, the company deployed a customized VSAT satellite network combining both digital media and business continuity applications on a single platform. During normal operations the stores’ T-1 lines serve as the primary link for all point-of-sale and back office traffic while the satellite provides multi-cast delivery of content for in-store digital signage displays. In the event of a terrestrial link failure, the digital signage application reverts to cached content, while all critical point-of-sale transactions and back office applications are automatically re-routed over the always-on satellite connection.
Success
By intelligently combining both applications onto a single network, the retail chain successfully implemented their digital media application and saw an increase in per customer sales of 5-7% per store. Simultaneously, they were able to meet the objective of implementing a continuity of operations system. The combined solution actually lowered the clients overall capital expenditure and operation expense costs compared to two stand-alone systems for digital signage and business continuity.
