Discussions

We are investigating have 2 separate fiber lines to our campus with multiple internet service providers. How common is this with other schools. I know businesses that rely heavily on internet access do this but the cost is much higher. Thanks
#ITSystemsandSupport

Having a 1:1 program, digital textbooks, cloud-hosted CMS, school management, email, and accounting puts schools in the same position as businesses that rely heavily on internet access. It's essential to be clear that the goal is about redundancy, so in addition to multiple internet providers, HA firewalls, core-stack redundancy, redundant end-point links, etc., all work toward this goal. One additional thought might be to ensure that the two separate fiber lines travel underground, follow different paths or reach campus via different right-of-ways so that a single wayward dump truck striking a pole doesn't take out both simultaneously.

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Glenn Hymel
Strake Jesuit College Prep
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-18-2022 07:01 PM
From: Keith Bolstein
Subject: Multiple internet service providers

We are investigating have 2 separate fiber lines to our campus with multiple internet service providers. How common is this with other schools. I know businesses that rely heavily on internet access do this but the cost is much higher. Thanks
#ITSystemsandSupport

Glenn is correct on all points.

We have had redundant ISPs for years and it has paid off on multiple occasions. Right now we are in the process of upgrading our secondary connection to a bigger pipe so we can have true load balancing across circuits. Our campus straddles a town line, and while this is usually an impediment, in this circumstance it is a definite plus. We are able to deal with two different ISPs, coming from different directions and terminating in different buildings.

If possible logistically and economically, I strongly recommend going down this path.

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Michael Langlois
Director of Technology
Brimmer School
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-19-2022 08:36 AM
From: Glenn Hymel
Subject: Multiple internet service providers

Having a 1:1 program, digital textbooks, cloud-hosted CMS, school management, email, and accounting puts schools in the same position as businesses that rely heavily on internet access. It's essential to be clear that the goal is about redundancy, so in addition to multiple internet providers, HA firewalls, core-stack redundancy, redundant end-point links, etc., all work toward this goal. One additional thought might be to ensure that the two separate fiber lines travel underground, follow different paths or reach campus via different right-of-ways so that a single wayward dump truck striking a pole doesn't take out both simultaneously.

------------------------------
Glenn Hymel
Strake Jesuit College Prep

Original Message:
Sent: 07-18-2022 07:01 PM
From: Keith Bolstein
Subject: Multiple internet service providers

We are investigating have 2 separate fiber lines to our campus with multiple internet service providers. How common is this with other schools. I know businesses that rely heavily on internet access do this but the cost is much higher. Thanks
#ITSystemsandSupport

Like Glenn, we have two fiber WAN links (1 Gbps) with two separate paths into campus, plus redundant firewalls and redundancy in our core network stack and, wherever possible, our fiber downlinks to our buildings.  Outages are rare, but when they do happen, we're happy to have spent the extra money.

We did have fixed wireless for our second connection, like Ben has.  It was a much simpler way to get redundancy when we were first starting down that path, and is definitely preferable to not having two connections if you're not able to get two fiber links along separate paths, but since we could upgrade, we did.

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David Fulton-Howard
Technical Support Manager
McDonogh School
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-19-2022 08:36 AM
From: Glenn Hymel
Subject: Multiple internet service providers

Having a 1:1 program, digital textbooks, cloud-hosted CMS, school management, email, and accounting puts schools in the same position as businesses that rely heavily on internet access. It's essential to be clear that the goal is about redundancy, so in addition to multiple internet providers, HA firewalls, core-stack redundancy, redundant end-point links, etc., all work toward this goal. One additional thought might be to ensure that the two separate fiber lines travel underground, follow different paths or reach campus via different right-of-ways so that a single wayward dump truck striking a pole doesn't take out both simultaneously.

------------------------------
Glenn Hymel
Strake Jesuit College Prep

Original Message:
Sent: 07-18-2022 07:01 PM
From: Keith Bolstein
Subject: Multiple internet service providers

We are investigating have 2 separate fiber lines to our campus with multiple internet service providers. How common is this with other schools. I know businesses that rely heavily on internet access do this but the cost is much higher. Thanks
#ITSystemsandSupport

We use a fixed wireless service in addition to our fiber since we couldn't get fully diverse fiber paths.  It's been rock-solid, fast, and low-latency for the last 5 years.  It's not available everywhere, but if it is in your area, it might be worth a look.
Original Message:
Sent: 07-18-2022 07:01 PM
From: Keith Bolstein
Subject: Multiple internet service providers

We are investigating have 2 separate fiber lines to our campus with multiple internet service providers. How common is this with other schools. I know businesses that rely heavily on internet access do this but the cost is much higher. Thanks
#ITSystemsandSupport

@Keith Bolstein at Montclair Kimberley Academy we have three distinct locations (Primary, Middle, & Upper) and at each location, we have two connections... one from Comcast and the other from FIOS.

We use our firewall for load balancing between the two lines and prioritize specific types of traffic over each connection given the are not both symmetrical upload/download speeds (putting the speed where needed).

 ​

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William Stites
Director of Technology
Montclair Kimberley Academy
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-18-2022 07:01 PM
From: Keith Bolstein
Subject: Multiple internet service providers

We are investigating have 2 separate fiber lines to our campus with multiple internet service providers. How common is this with other schools. I know businesses that rely heavily on internet access do this but the cost is much higher. Thanks
#ITSystemsandSupport

Thank you everyone, your comments are helpful as we make a decision on this.

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Keith Bolstein
Lake Highland Preparatory School
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-18-2022
From: Keith Bolstein
Subject: Multiple internet service providers

We are investigating have 2 separate fiber lines to our campus with multiple internet service providers. How common is this with other schools. I know businesses that rely heavily on internet access do this but the cost is much higher. Thanks
#ITSystemsandSupport

We've had this for a long time now. The main thing to keep an eye on is your IP addressing. Either you get your own IP space (a bit hard or expensive now) and run BGP, or you rely on your ISPs to advertise the space, but you then need to handle NAT or SD-WAN to balance the outgoing connections (and running servers is tricky as well).

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Christ Church Grammar School
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-18-2022 07:01 PM
From: Keith Bolstein
Subject: Multiple internet service providers

We are investigating have 2 separate fiber lines to our campus with multiple internet service providers. How common is this with other schools. I know businesses that rely heavily on internet access do this but the cost is much higher. Thanks
#ITSystemsandSupport

Just to chime in with the chorus, we also have two separate entry points to our physical campus for two fiber lines provided by different vendors. We distribute our traffic with security & life safety systems on one fiber, and all other traffic on the other. When one system has a hiccup, all affected traffic reroutes to the other service.

I'll confess that it took us being down for a day and a half due to an issue with our provider (when we were single-source) before we decided to invest in a second fiber line. The extremely interesting result from all of this is that we told our vendors what we were doing and were able to bring the second line to campus and our monthly bill for TWO lines is now less than it was when we only had one service--that's what happens when you sign a multi-year contract and the price of the service drops but you don't ask for a better rate. Oh, one final thing, we had a third party between us and our primary fiber provider, which we cut out of the picture and we now deal directly with the service providers.

Hope this helps!

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James Cudzilo
Chief Information Officer
Miami Country Day School
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-18-2022 07:01 PM
From: Keith Bolstein
Subject: Multiple internet service providers

We are investigating have 2 separate fiber lines to our campus with multiple internet service providers. How common is this with other schools. I know businesses that rely heavily on internet access do this but the cost is much higher. Thanks
#ITSystemsandSupport