Business Networking 101

Here’s everything you need to know about equipping your organization with a safe, fast, flexible and reliable network:

Dedicated internet access at a glance

What is it?

The definition of dedicated internet access lies in its name. The key word, though, is “dedicated.” That means the internet you access is yours and yours alone. You can tap into your very own secure network connection, so you don’t have to worry about fighting with other businesses for precious bandwidth over a widely used public connection.

And even when public internet use is surging around you, you have little to worry about. Your organization isn’t adversely impacted by the uptick. You can count on your dedicated internet access to provide your business with the trusted reliability and lightning-quick speeds it needs to perform at its peak.

Who needs it?

Whether you’re a multinational enterprise with over 100,000 employees around the globe, a small or mid-sized business (SMB) with under 1,000 staff members spanning one country, or a mom-and-pop shop with just a handful of workers in a single town, dedicated internet access can support your diverse needs.

Similarly, as an organization in retail, finance or another space, you can rely on dedicated internet access to help keep your operations humming, offering everything from enhancing employee productivity to providing exceptional customer experiences.

Why is it important?

Today’s modern digital businesses must be able to deliver mission-critical cloud-based apps to distributed workforces with ultimate reliability. To meet your growing IT demands and support your staff’s voice, video, file-sharing, data backup and other needs, your organization requires an optimal networking solution.

Dedicated internet access can provide your company with the high-speed, high-powered performance capabilities needed to minimize lag, decrease latency and scale bandwidth. It adds flexibility to your operations, so you can configure and reconfigure your setup based on rising workloads and other dynamically changing demands. Plus, it offers you secure connectivity to safeguard your organization’s most sensitive data as you share it between multiple sources.

A primer on private connectivity

What is it?

A private internet connection—through a multiprotocol label switching internet protocol virtual private network (MPLS IP VPN), for instance—allows you to operate independently from dedicated internet access or public internet.

This privacy is intended to keep your business safe. But it’s also aimed at increasing your performance. With any-to-any/point-to-point connectivity, you can reliably deliver mission-critical business applications and data to your entire workforce—and scale as needed.

Who needs it?

Companies of all shapes and sizes can benefit from a private internet connection like MPLS IP VPN.

If you’re a large global advertising agency, you can leverage it at multiple sites around the world to meet certain quality of service and dynamic bandwidth allocation requirements. Or, say you’re a leading logistics provider, you can use it to prioritize your traffic needs to seamlessly deliver voice, video and cloud capabilities to employees across the globe.

If you operate a smaller business in healthcare or insurance, MPLS IP VPN can help you do everything from supporting your increasingly mobile workforce to handling confidential inbound and outbound data, such as sensitive personal or financial information.

Why is it important?

Privacy and performance are top of mind for today’s top businesses. With a focus on enhanced security features and reliability, a private internet connection like MPLS IP VPN can help deliver both. It makes it easy for you to safely link your offices and other work sites. Plus, you can provide traffic prioritization and routing for seamless app and data delivery.

Whether your staff works on site or off, you can equip them with the proper protection they need to safely share files with one another. Your employees can securely access your company’s intranet site from home or download sensitive corporate information from an internal database.

Surveying the network landscape

Before you choose an enterprise network solution to support your business needs, it’s crucial to be aware of your options. It’s important to understand the differences between public and private networks and the key capabilities that each offers to find out what’s right for you.

WAN

Wide area network (WAN) lets you connect people and devices across regions—nationwide or worldwide. The go-to networking solution for virtually any and every modern-day enterprise with an ethernet or broadband/cable internet connection, direct internet access or MPLS IP VPN, WAN works by connecting the various local area networks deployed at local offices into one larger, more powerful network.

Who uses it?

• Organizations with multiple office locations and distributed workforces that span the globe
• Enterprises that require a reliable network that won’t be adversely impacted by other companies’ internet use

SD-WAN

Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) uses software-based controls and automation to assign network resources to secure and optimize traffic routing and enhance application performance and availability.   With built-in firewall and security features, SD-WAN adds a layer of protection over your existing private or public network. In addition to increasing network and data security, SD-WAN enables your organization to optimize connectivity between data centers and cloud applications or among field offices and store locations.

Who uses it?

• Companies whose employees rely on cloud-based resources to do their jobs effectively
• Businesses with numerous locations that need to safely send private data between sites
• Organizations that deal with sudden spikes in traffic due to increased application use

This document is provided for informational purposes only and may require additional research and substantiation by the end user. In addition, the information is provided “as is” without any warranty or condition of any kind, either express or implied. Use of this information is at the end user’s own risk. Lumen does not warrant that the information will meet the end user’s requirements or that the implementation or usage of this information will result in the desired outcome of the end user. This document represents Lumen products and offerings as of the date of issue.

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