Why a failover for your network, tech, and security is a must

The traditional use of a failover in business is to deliver high availability for servers and applications through a group of independent servers, known as clusters. Failovers enable you to automatically switch to a backup system if a service interruption occurs. If your primary network goes down due to an outage, cyberattack, or something else, a failover shifts your operations to a secondary system with minimal or no disruption so you can continue doing business normally.

Protecting a business from downtime is an age-old problem. In some industries the solution is to have a tech or engineer on call 24/7 to watch for potential threats and outages. In the case of cybercrime, that does little good if the company isn’t keeping up with security practices, enforcing required network hygiene, or using outdated legacy systems. A provider that adds new features or vendors to existing applications and platforms without addressing system gaps and vulnerabilities leaves the business exposed to breach attempts or system failures.

Currently, the average cost of business IT downtime ranges from $12,500 to $23,750 per minute.¹  There’s no question unplanned downtime hurts your business financially, but a failover is equally important during periods of planned downtime like system upgrades, repairs, and testing. It’s especially critical and mandatory for industries with strict uptime requirements like healthcare, finance, and e-commerce.

No matter what business you’re in, or how many systems, clouds, or vendors you’re using, a failover isn’t something to be put off. Nor should you assume vendors or providers are doing it for you. Your network is the lifeline of your business, of which a failover is a crucial and necessary part. As you read on, you’ll learn how important it is to your network, your security, and your devices. And how you can best prepare your business should an interruption occur.

A foundational element of business continuity is network resiliency, which is the ability for your network to recover quickly after a disruption. As the digital footprint for businesses expands across the globe, so does the complexity of their IT architecture and maintenance. This increases direct and indirect costs during downtime.

Despite this, a surprising number of businesses don’t have a failover strategy for their network. They either put faith in their vendors hoping their applications don’t have interruptions, or they fail to take steps to achieve sufficient network resiliency on their own. While most enterprises have some type of plan in place, an imperfect failover strategy puts network resiliency at risk. Introducing new features, components, integrations, and other changes without knowing how they’ll impact the network can expose new vulnerabilities.

There’s an even greater risk to the business if they’re using an outdated legacy system. When that happens it’s less a matter of if there will be a failure, but rather when and how much damage it’ll cause.

For example, research shows 88% of geographically distributed companies need up to five hours to restore their network after a failure or outage with 12% needing at least one day or more to regain normal operations.² A comprehensive failover strategy is not only critical to business success, but also longevity. A business that fails to restore its network quickly simply can’t compete with those that do.

For small businesses, these stakes are even higher because so much of where and how they do business happens online. Even the smallest malfunction or failure can be catastrophic or business ending. Many lack the same resources or expertise as enterprises, though there are cost-effective solutions available.

[Read: What is a failover?]

So where to begin? For starters, your failover should cover every aspect of your network—from connectivity and your internal systems to the hardware and components. The business software, applications, and third parties you use to do your work and store your data should all be included. This goes for both on-premises and cloud-based applications.

Like layered security, your goal is to build network resilience and network redundancy so that no single point of failure brings your business to a halt. To prevent network overload, add a load balancer that distributes data across two or more servers. You’ll also want to incorporate diversity into your failover by adding a variety of routes, access points, and components.

What’s the takeaway in all this? A failover strategy that incorporates diversity into network architecture and connectivity is more likely to withstand a service issue than one that doesn’t. But your failover can also help contribute towards your network security, as we’ll discuss next.

Downtime can occur for several reasons. However, in 2023, cyberattacks became the leading cause for the first time.³ We have more access points, attack surfaces, applications, devices, and sites to protect. But attackers are also highly sophisticated using a combination of tactics and methods like malware, ransomware, phishing, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, among others, to target and damage business networks.

Because redundancy is fundamental to your failover and business continuity strategy, having back-up or secondary connections, components, and systems ready to take over increases the likelihood of withstanding a cyberattack. A seamless failover enhances this cyber resilience by ensuring your network continues to perform without disruption. That includes the ability of your layered security tools to remain operational to slow or stop the attack.

[Read: Layered defense: Improving your network security]

The same approach applies if an attacker targets your connectivity. In a DDoS attack, an attacker can disrupt traffic to a website or network resources making them inoperable. Using multiple connections and even data centers enables you to reroute services and continue operating. Parallel networking is another way to increase cyber resilience. By having two separate networks that aren’t connected to each other, businesses can help reduce their vulnerability should one fail or be compromised.

[Read: How to build defense in depth in a business]

However, bear in mind these failover methods are not a substitute for an effective network security and defense in depth strategy. Instead, they should be used to augment the security tools, technologies, and components you already have in place.

Network uptime is one measure of your reliability. It’s the percentage of time users are able use and access applications and services without disruption, whether they’re customers or employees. Having a failover for your network helps ensure technology and resources maintain always-on availability so work or transactions can be performed.

This is especially crucial given the rapid uptick in endpoint devices, applications, and mission-critical business systems. Many of us use traditional business devices like smartphones, laptops, tablets, and desktop computers. But endpoints also extend to servers, databases, virtual machines, some routers, and Internet of Things devices used in manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, and other industries—all of which need the network to send and receive information.

But it isn’t just endpoints that need network access. Users are more reliant on digital tools and services than any point in history. Enterprises are now using 26% more apps to do business compared to just two years ago,⁴ with over 65 applications installed on the average enterprise device.⁵ Businesses even rely on super apps to perform multiple tasks, further heightening the need for a failover to keep an outage from halting operations entirely.

If the stakes sound high, that’s because they are. Therefore, failover planning starts with having a full picture of your network and all that’s connected to it.

If your goal is to maintain high availability, an effective automatic failover can often happen so quickly your users won’t know an interruption occurred.

What you’ll want to avoid is a lack of visibility into IT assets and applications. If you don’t know what’s connected or where, you’re going to have a much tougher time returning operations to normal. Recently, 62% of IT business professionals cited having difficulty keeping an accurate list of IT assets.⁶ That’s problematic because what isn’t tracked can’t be monitored, maintained, or replaced before its end of life.

To have a successful failover, you’ll need more than just a list of hardware and components. Applications and operating systems need to be updated. Security patches need to be deployed. And data needs to be backed up regularly and in more than one location.

Network monitoring tools will enable you to identify gaps or vulnerabilities that can cause network issues so they can be corrected. You’ll want to map out the failover and failback procedure for each network, and ideally each application and workload. Failback is the process of returning operations to the primary location once an interruption has been resolved.

Lastly, you don’t have to be an expert to have a winning failover strategy. If you lack the time, knowledge, or resources, a business continuity services professional can give you the answers you need. Beyond failover strategies and advice, they can help identify potential risks to your recovery, as well as offer solutions that keep your business at the top of its game.

Learn more about AT&T Business solutions at business.att.com. To connect with an expert who knows business, contact your AT&T Business representative.

See how ultra-fast, reliable fiber and 5G connectivity protected by built-in security give you a new level of confidence in the possibilities of your network. Let our experts work with you to solve your challenges and accelerate outcomes. Your business deserves the AT&T Business difference—a new standard for networking.

¹ “What is the cost of an IT outage in 2024?” BigPanda, May 2024, https://www.bigpanda.io/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bigpanda-infographics-cost-of-it-outage.pdf.

² “Managing geographically distributed businesses: challenges and solutions,” Kaspersky Daily, Accessed August 28, 2024, https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/geo-distributed-businesses-research-2024/.

³ Amy Al-Katib, “Cyberattacks are the new leading cause of IT downtime,” Mission Critical Magazine, November 2, 2023, https://www.missioncriticalmagazine.com/articles/94967-cyberattacks-are-the-new-leading-cause-of-downtime.

⁴ Salesforce: State of IT, 3rd Edition,” Salesforce, 2023, https://www.salesforce.com/content/dam/web/en_us/www/documents/reports/salesforce-state-of-it-3rd-edition-v2.pdf.

⁵ “Enterprise devices have an average of 67 applications installed,” Security Magazine, April 24, 2023, https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/99248-enterprise-devices-have-an-average-of-67-applications-installed

⁶ “Mastering Endpoint Security in A Hybrid World,” Forrester Consulting, September 2023, https://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/4AA8-3305ENW.pdf.