Cloud Computing – Internet Access is Everything

A short while ago I wrote an article entitled “Cloud Computing – Hot Air or Business Reality?“. This looked at the pros and cons of cloud computing – BIG BENEFITS, BIG RISKS.

Risk number 1 was summed up by IT specialist Andy Scott “Loss of Internet = loss of information systems. PERIOD.” At each place of use, it is a must to have at least two totally independent reasonably high-speed internet connections, This is often landline + 3G.

Being one of the few areas of the country that hasn’t have Virgin cable, the new Virgin boxes has reminded me that there are effectively two landline broadband & telephone services around much of the UK. Virgin has recently installed a hi-speed fibre optic network in our area. This provides higher broadband speed than across BT lines, off-site backup, and a range of other benefits. There are various broadband packages to suit usage. It’s slightly cheaper to have broadband without a phone line, and TV is then optional.

Whilst Virgin Media aims their marketing at residential households, they tell me they are equally happy to provide service to businesses that are served by Virgin’s cable network.

For larger businesses, contingency planning for telecomms is a specialist activity. For smaller businesses, it can be as simple as having two or three types of internet access: :

• Broadband via BT landlines (through BT or one of many broadband resellers)
• Virgin Media cable - postcode availability checker
• A 3G service

Here’s a useful comparison service between the various services at a given location.

Obviously accessing the internet is only one part of the Cloud contingency question. But if you are working with reputable cloud providers that have multi-site server and telecomms contingency themselves, the risks are down to a very acceptable level.

As I’ve never used Virgin Cable for broadband, what are other people’s experiences of the service?

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