Towards ensuring reliability and security
Shane j. Hodge
Computimes-23/07/01
When the west coast of the United States was plunged three times network outage over a period of six months in early 1998, the federal government with the help of local authorities, private companies and networking vendors, formed the Network Reliability and Inter-operability Council (NRIC).
Charged with a mandate to study and establish basic standards on networking reliability and connectivity across the United States, the council was able to identify a set of operating and management protocols to ensure networking reliability.
Today, the NRIC manages and regulates the various networking and inter-operability standards and performance benchmarks to ensure compliance and widespread accessibility.
As a result, outages have become rare in the US, with each network built redundancy and load manipulators to ensure minimal disruption to normal service.
Based on this backdrop of secure and reliable networks around the country, paradigms such as electronic commerce (e-commerce), business and electronic banking have not only taken off but also flourished.
Critical Factors. Security, availability, connectivity and, most of all, reliability are factors critical to any operations over a network, especially in the world of e-commerce where normal service cannot be disrupted.
Similarly in Malaysia, network reliability has become a hotly-debated issue since its introduction. Facing not only geographical challenges, broadband and electronic data network providers have in recent times suffered some embarrassing outages that have proved to be a costly exercise, been very disruptive to local businesses and prohibitive to the growth of e-business.
With the aim of providing a viable solution, Cordoda Corporation Sdn Bhd, has developed a Malaysia-wide broadband network that is built on full redundancy and capacity to manage disruptions in connectivity.
Pre-Internet networks or electronic data interchange (EDI) infrastructure emphasised reliability over speed. Based on dedicated limited area networks, these systems were expensive options involving switches and infrastructure management components.
Today, however, with the advent of Internet, networks are fast and are built cost-effectively. Unfortunately, as these infrastructures are designed for speed, they are not always reliable.
Organisations have to realise that the fundamental principle of the Internet is that reliability is not part of the basic package, it is something that has to be built in.
Redundancy - key to reliability.
The solution then is in building the redundancy within the network to manage the load effectively. Relatively inexpensive bandwidth has enabled infrastructure and telecommunications providers to provide networks with alternative options and bandwidth. As a result, disruption to service is minimal and delivery of data and information over a network is smooth and efficient.
Through a variety of fail-safe measures, companies like Cordoda are today able to provide reliable and secure networks
for Malaysian businesses.
Built on an extensive network covering East and West Malaysia, performance and reliability are ensured through the availability of multiple backbones, telecommunications providers and network protocols. With a single-minded goal of providing a reliable and fully redundant network, Cordoda is able to support up to 300 customers on each existing 18 points of presence spread across Malaysia.
Known commercially as Enterprise Broadband Network (EBN), Cordoda’s e-business network is already supporting customers in the banking, financial services, and manufacturing industries.
Multiple backbones.
One of the ways Cordoda ensure reliability through redundancy is to provide multiple network architecture that allows automatic re-routing of traffic when a problem occurs. This automatic re-routing allows mission-critical applications and functions to be carried out with minimal disruption or none at all.
Also engaging interoperable technologies and networking protocols, Cordoda ensures the transfer of data is continuous and reliable. Speed is combined effectively with reliability through such redundant infrastructure.
Similarly, for every digital connection, Cordoda ensures that there is a back-up integrated services digital network (ISDN) server. This back-up server, managed through specialised ISDN equipment provides multi-protocol bandwidth capability.
The extension and expansion of bandwidth ensures connectivity and security of communications for organisations based on
Cordoda’s EBN.
In addition by subscribing to dual or multiple Internet service providers (ISPs), organisations are better protected and positioned
against outages and disruption of service, It is this philosophy that drives the EBN infrastructure.
Supported by dual ISP, EBN offers customers the opportunity to switch automatically if one ISP fails to another, thus ensuring a reliable network access.
A redundant ISP provides load balancing and dynamic bandwidth management which will result in high availability of Internet access.
Furthermore, by practising the fail-over concept, Cordoda is able to manage and regulate the load as well as connectivity and accessibility. A unique service, the fail-over concept is a fully redundant fail-safe alternative that protects the customer from outages and disruption of service.
The EBN’s Network Control Centre (NGC), manned by network professionals, manages and monitors network usage, updates and provides clients with their network performance and billings.
The writer is chief operating officer for Cordoda Corporation Sdn Bhd.
This
news is related to Cordoda Corporation Sdn Bhd
Search
for more news relating to Cordoda Corporation Sdn Bhd
Search
for products & services relating to Cordoda Corporation Sdn Bhd
