Introduction

Giganet's ELITE (leased line) services are highly reliable services from the get go. They are often delivered using point to point (1:1) fibre circuits between the customer's premises and a local point of presence.

This 1:1 point to point fibre is not susceptible to the many issues that hybrid-copper/fibre or copper broadband services (such as ADSL/FTTC/VDSL/DOCSIS cable) is such as interference, cross-talk, jointing issues, electrical short circuits, water ingress, long line lengths incurring resistance/speed loss/attenuation.

However this being said, no service can be guaranteed to be fault free. There is the 'JCB' effect of someone cutting through the fibre cable, or a network outage at the local point of presence or in M12's network.

Therefore if organisations are demanding the most reliable, resilient and best connection, then we always recommend a design that facilitates this, and in pretty much all cases, Giganet can help with this.

Resilient Options

In order of the most resilience:

1. RO2 (Resilience Option 2) - 100% SLA

This is the only option where we offer our 100% SLA, as an RO2 design is engineered in such a way that there should be no single points of failure.

• Dual Giganet managed Juniper routers configured in HA/Cluster mode - providing automatic seamless failover in case of a hardware failure. (You will also need to ensure that your firewall/LAN is configured to be HA/highly available to benefit from this.)
• Dual entry into your premises for the fibre circuits - this means that the fibre routing into your building doesn't enter via the same ducts/routing ensuring that any building work at your premises can't impact both lines at the same time.
• Completely separate routing with no-pinch points from your premises to the exchanges - this means that the two fibre circuits are no sharing any of the same carriage way or routing upon leaving your premises. E.g. if a JCB were to dig through a road, then this could only impact one circuit as the other is routing via different direction.
• Dual exchanges - the diversely routed fibres are connected to different exchanges or points of presence (POPs). This means that if there were to be a failover of one of the exchanges (say power/flood/fire/etc), then this shouldn't affect the other exchange.
• Dual backhaul links from the exchanges/POPs to Giganet's network - this helps to ensure that the onward connectivity from the exchanges is also not following any single points of failure, as they will have fibre links that run back to Giganet's network.
• Dual Giganet data centres for the primary and secondary circuit handover - one circuits is terminated into one of our data centres, and the other into our separate data centre ensuring that if there's a failure in one, it doesn't affect the other.
• Resilient Giganet core network with multiple upstream connections - Giganet has a diverse core network with multiple Tier 1 and peering connections from its different data centres ensuring that connectivity to the outside world will continue in case of an outage within our core.

If you have an Internet leased line service, the public IP addresses will failover automatically.

If you have an MPLS PWAN service, the internal PWAN addresses will failover automatically.

As I've said before, nothing can be guaranteed to be fault free however, but RO2 is the best way to ensure you are doing the most to protect against unexpected outages. Here's a list for your risk matrix which may still affect the reliability of the RO2 service, some are within our control and we've done a lot to ward against these, but in the spirt of transparency we'll outline the top risks:

• Issues at your premises which are not resilient: Power cut/floor/fire/other acts of God
• Pinch-points: Although RO2 is designed to be highly resilient, sometimes it's either extremely expensive or not possible to have completely separate fibre routings. This could create pinch-points. These could be into your premises, or it could be in the carriageway. These will be identified as part of the survey/ordering process and disclosed to you.
• M12 core network misconfiguration. As our network is joined together with config interacting with multiple devices across different data centres, there could be a scenario where config is applied in one data centre and device that affects services at all sites. We have controls in place to prevent this from happening.
• London catastrophe - M12's data centres are located in London, and most of the UK's internet passes through London, so if there were to be a major issue affecting London, or the data centre community, then this would have an impact. We really hope this doesn't happen though! If it does, I think we'll be concerned about other things.

2.1. Second ELITE (leased line) via a different carrier/same exchange - 99.99% SLA

Here we can provide two ELITE (leased line) services for active and standby, but each is routed via a different network carrier and using different local fibre infrastructure (e.g. Primary CityFibre fibre and Secondary Openreach fibre). However, there is still a possibility that both fibre circuits are travelling via the same ducts as CityFibre sometimes use Openreach ducts rather than building their own. Usually both carriers will be located in a different exchange/point of presence, but sometimes this may be common. Finally, the backhaul carriers they use to connect their exchange or point of presence to Giganet's core network may use the same fibre backhaul carriers. This kind of detailed information is almost impossible to find out due to NDAs/complexity.

• Dual ELITE (leased line) services using different fibre carriers. They may be located in the same exchange however, and the fibre routing from your premises the exchange may be in the same ducts. This information is usually not easily possible to find out. So customers have to risk it.
• Potential for Dual backhaul links between their exchange/POP and Giganet's core network. However this cannot be guaranteed as in certain geographic regions, there is only one long-distance backhaul carrier available. This information is usually not easily possible to find out. So customers have to risk it.
• Dual Giganet data centres for the primary and secondary circuit handover - one circuits is terminated into one of our data centres, and the other into our separate data centre ensuring that if there's a failure in one, it doesn't affect the other.
• Resilient Giganet core network with multiple upstream connections - Giganet has a diverse core network with multiple Tier 1 and peering connections from its different data centres ensuring that connectivity to the outside world will continue in case of an outage within our core.

Optionally we can provide dual HA routers in cluster mode to provide resiliency against a router hardware failover, where the primary circuit connects to #1 router, and the secondary circuit connects to #2 router, with auto failover of IP addresses.

2.2. Second ELITE (leased line) via a different carrier - 99.99% SLA

Here we can provide two ELITE (leased line) services for active and standby, but each is routed via a different network carrier - however they may be both located in the same exchange/point of presence, and they may both be using Openreach fibre.

• Dual ELITE (leased line) services using different fibre carriers. They may be located in the same exchange however, and the fibre routing from your premises the exchange may be in the same ducts.
• Dual Giganet data centres for the primary and secondary circuit handover - one circuits is terminated into one of our data centres, and the other into our separate data centre ensuring that if there's a failure in one, it doesn't affect the other.
• Resilient Giganet core network with multiple upstream connections - Giganet has a diverse core network with multiple Tier 1 and peering connections from its different data centres ensuring that connectivity to the outside world will continue in case of an outage within our core.

Optionally we can provide dual HA routers in cluster mode to provide resiliency against a router hardware failover, where the primary circuit connects to #1 router, and the secondary circuit connects to #2 router, with auto failover of IP addresses.

3.0 Backup Broadband - 99.99% SLA

Backup broadband is the easiest and least expensive route for most organisations. This is where the primary circuit is an ELITE (leased line) fibre connection, whereas the backup and secondary circuit is a hybrid-copper/fibre or copper broadband based service. The backup could be an ADSL2+/FTTC (VDSL2) or G.Fast service. In some areas, it may be possible to get a FTTP (GPON) broadband service as the backup - and also this may mean there are two fibre services, they can sometimes be routed differently, onto different exchanges and network infrastructure.

Backup broadband can also be added as a tertiary backup for options 1 and 2 for belt and braces.

• ELITE (leased line) service for the primary, and backup broadband for the secondary.
• The ELITE service is usually fibre, whereas the broadband is usually a copper based service routing to the exchange or a local FTTC/G.Fast fibre-enabled cabinet. So there is diversity in the delivery cable. Sometimes the copper and fibre circuits enter different sides of your premises (however not guaranteed), and sometimes copper and fibre services travel down different ducts/telegraph poles.
• Potential for dual exchanges. With certain broadband services such as our SuperBOLT FTTC, UltraBOLT G.Fast and UltraBEAM FTTP GPON services, these terminate into what's known as a Parent Exchange. This may be a different exchange where the primary ELITE (leased line) service terminates. Therefore this can offer resiliency in case of an exchange issue. We can find this out prior to order.
• Dual carriers for the ELITE (leased line) and secondary broadband services. Our broadband carriers are usually different to the ELITE services, and there is a chance that they are using different backhaul carriers to reach back to our Giganet core network. However this is not guaranteed and we cannot usually find this out due to NDA/complexity.
• using different fibre carriers. They may be located in the same exchange however, and the fibre routing from your premises the exchange may be in the same ducts.
• Dual Giganet data centres for the primary ELITE service and secondary broadband circuit handover - the primary ELITE (leased line) service is terminated into one of our data centres, and the secondary broadband service into our separate data centre ensuring that if there's a failure in one, it doesn't affect the other.
• Resilient Giganet core network with multiple upstream connections - Giganet has a diverse core network with multiple Tier 1 and peering connections from its different data centres ensuring that connectivity to the outside world will continue in case of an outage within our core.

Backup broadband options depending on what services are available at your premises location:

• ADSL2+
• FTTC (VDSL2)
• G.Fast
• FTTP (GPON)

Optionally we can provide dual HA routers in cluster mode to provide resiliency against a router hardware failover, where the primary circuit connects to #1 router, and the secondary circuit connects to #2 router, with auto failover of IP addresses.