Your Network the backbone to successful uninterrupted business services.
Bravo Business Systems is the world’s most powerful store operating system. We power the Bravo application with IBM servers in the most protected colocation facility in the United States. We have built this with the most secure technologies from Microsoft. These are tomorrows technology here today. This is all possible because of the Cloud and the Internet.
Moore’s technology law is still holding true today. Expect all forms of technology to get faster.
There are 2 points of failure when Bravo’s data center sends a result to your store. The Internet and your store. The Internet has multiple routes to get to your store and it travels at the speed of light. It is not fail proof, but the most dependable communication link. Bravo’s data packets travel round trip from coast to coast in about ¾ of second. The speed of light travels much faster than that, but the data packets go through a number of gates to get to your store and back.
- · Your store is a destination and your router is the gate. How is the landing pad functioning and quality – your router?
- · Once the data packet passes the router the next gate is the switch that directs the packet to the correct destination.
- · The switch also assists in finding the direct address so that the data packet goes to the destination in the most direct path.
- · Your cables and connections. Believe this, if you haven’t replaced your cables in the last 7 years plus, there have improvements made that can make your hard wire network 10x faster and more reliable.
- · Optional wireless router – wireless routers are improving drastically every year, construction of your store, walls, and competing frequency can all impede the performance and reliability.
- · Ah, finally we are home; the computers or printers in your store. The computer’s memory and processing speed are critical requirements, what your computer is capable in doing when this data gets there is time back to our data center. The printers capacity, black & white, color (7x slower), makes a very significant difference.
IMPORTANT - What we have found in most of our users stores is the Internet is being used a lot. Whatever they maybe, intentional and unintentional, (employee policies of use need to be enforced), in the end the capacity is over utilized and some application is going to suffer.
Our first suggestion is to use common sense. If your store is streaming video and other bandwidth hogs this needs to be managed or eliminated. Some of you are using the Internet for Security surveillance – this a huge bandwidth appliance.
Our second suggestion is utilize a Network Specialist to access, manage, and maintain (Virus protection). Need to keep your pipes clean and the Internet is no different. One example of traffic priority is QOS – Quality of Service. This is sometimes called shaping of the traffic. Most routers can be set to prioritize your traffic. All of the other bullet points above can be assessed by your Network Specialist.
ISP – Internet Service Provider The ISP that you pay your monthly fees for Internet is a conduit and manager of bandwidth. When new customers in your area are activated in most cases your bandwidth needs to be re-calibrated. The flow of bandwidth to your store can be diverted by your next door neighbor, Hmm. All you have to do is ask your ISP to recalibrate what you should be getting. Here are some additional questions if you think there is a problem.
· Is there any reason today (time period), that my service has been interrupted?
· Is there any repair services being conducted near or around my store?
· Can you check my connection now to see if you see any issues?
Let us know if you have any additional comments to add to this topic.
Thanks,
