Network Resilience Means Business Continuity

Business continuity, as defined by TechTarget, “is an organization’s ability to maintain critical business functions during a disaster.” There are many types of events that qualify as a disaster, including security breaches, natural disasters, supply chain disruptions and pandemics. Among these, an often overlooked critical event is the loss of internet connectivity.

For nearly all businesses, loss of internet connectivity means operations halt. For example, if the internet connection goes down, a retail organization cannot process payment cards. If a law firm loses internet connectivity, attorneys and paralegals cannot access critical online resources like Westlaw. Bottom line — business continuity is dependent on internet connectivity.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines resilience to include “the ability to withstand and recover from deliberate attacks, accidents, or naturally occurring threats or incidents.” From a strategy and planning perspective, not only your IT systems but also your network needs to be resilient to function during and rapidly recover from major disruptions, which would include loss of internet connectivity.

This brings us to Datto and Datto’s commitment to business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR). For years, Datto has been world-renowned for its BCDR and cybersecurity solutions — all designed to maintain business continuity. What’s often overlooked is Datto’s Networking solutions that also incorporate Datto’s vision of resilience and business continuity.

An example of this is the Datto Networking Appliance (DNA). Now available in Europe and Asia-Pacific, Datto DNA is an integrated, all-in-one secure router that features seamless and automatic failover to 4G cellular internet connectivity should the main internet connection go down. This ensures businesses can continue utilizing online services as if nothing disruptive happened at all.

The Datto DNA secure router adds firewalling (1.7 Gbps throughput), Layer 7 deep packet inspection, intrusion detection/prevention (IDS/IPS), web content filtering and more all into one desktop appliance. All of this gives businesses resilient, defense-in-depth security in one easy-to-use appliance.

As for routing, the Datto DNA features Layer 7 traffic management, hosted VoIP support, port aggregation, traffic shaping, support for up to eight VLANs and more, giving small businesses plenty of advanced routing features that optimize network traffic capacity while reducing network congestion and failure. 

Integrated Wi-Fi provides fast and secure wireless LAN connectivity, eliminating the need to purchase additional wireless access points.

Cloud-based management, configuration, setup and ongoing management of the Datto DNA is handled via Datto Network Manager. With it, setting up a network can be done in minutes, not hours or days. Furthermore, new integrations with Datto Network Manager and Autotask allow you to manage alerts from Datto Network Manager and create Configuration Items (assets) for your networking devices in your Autotask database.

When your business absolutely, positively has to be connected online, you need resilient networking solutions that ensure business continuity. The Datto DNA secure router embodies this vision from Datto and is a perfect example of what resilient networking is all about. Your business runs on the internet, and if that connection fails, business stops. When it comes to internet connectivity, with Datto, failure is not an option.