A retail client with ten stores across Alberta was facing a frustrating problem. Every few weeks, their internet connection would drop without warning. Their point-of-sale tablets couldn’t process transactions, leaving frustrated staff to apologize to customers and scramble for workarounds while sales disappeared. Each time, our technicians responded quickly and got them back online, but the cycle kept repeating.
Rather than waiting for the next reactive fix, their Bulletproof IT Technical Account Manager decided to take a closer look and study the network’s setup as a whole. The problem wasn’t their service provider. It was the design. Simply adding another wired connection wouldn’t fix the issue, because that could go down just as easily if a power or firewall problem occurred.
Their account manager proposed a new approach: use the tablets’ LTE and 5G capabilities as a secondary connection. That way, even if the main internet went down, the tablets could automatically switch to cellular data and keep processing sales without interruption.
The fix was a success: the next time the primary network failed, sales didn’t stop. The stores kept running, staff stayed calm, and customers never noticed an issue.
What’s the takeaway for your business? If you’re dealing with the same IT headaches over and over, you may not be dealing with a case of bad luck. Instead, it’s time to rethink your setup. Luckily, proactive design and smart redundancy can transform recurring problems into lasting stability. If you’re not sure where to start, this article will break down the basics. You’ll learn a few best practice network strategies, and how managed IT services can help you apply them without needing to be a tech expert.
Why Redundancy and Business Continuity Deserve Attention Now
When your network fails, it’s not just an IT issue; it’s a business issue.
Almost every business today depends on a reliable internet connection. Your ability to process sales, sync real-time inventory data, manage cloud-based accounting, or provide secure access for remote staff all hinge on that connection working as expected. When it fails, so do these essential functions.
And today, as technology becomes even more connected, the risks get more complex. A single outage can stop operations across all departments, leading to serious financial consequences. Industry experts estimate that the average cost of downtime ranges from an average of $9,000 per minute or $540,000 per hour. While that might look different depending on your organization’s size, even one hour offline will likely translate into lost revenue, idle staff time, and emergency recovery costs.
Beyond the direct financial hit, an unreliable connection also affects your organization’s compliance and reputation. In Alberta, businesses that handle customer information are required to follow the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), and many are also subject to PIPEDA at the federal level. Both mandate strict safeguards for data integrity, secure storage, and timely access —all of which rely on having infrastructure that’s continuously available. Without a redundant connection, a single network failure risks breaching these requirements, on top of delaying your services and exposing your data to threat.
The good news is that many of these risks are preventable with proactive planning. Avoiding costly downtime often comes down to consistent visibility and maintenance. Regular system monitoring, redundancy testing, and managed oversight can reveal weak points before they lead to outages and give you measurable ways to build resilience into your network.
With smaller teams and tighter budgets, it’s the best way to protect your budget, time and resources.
Why Redundancy Fails in Practice
While some businesses don’t have any backup system in place and haven’t yet started planning for continuity, others have taken that important first step—only to discover that their systems still end up failing when they’re needed most. Here are a few reasons that might happen:
1. Shared Points of Failure
As you learned in the example of the retail store, two wired internet connections don’t help if they depend on the same equipment, wiring, or power source. If both services go through the same router or firewall, a single malfunction can take them both down.
2. Manual Failover
Switching to a backup connection manually sounds manageable in theory, but during an outage, it slows everything down. Without an automated failover in place, staff are left waiting for someone to notice the problem and make the change.
3. Unverified Backup Systems
A backup connection only works if it’s tested regularly. Many businesses implement a secondary link but never verify that it actually works. Too often, the failover isn’t configured to switch over automatically or doesn’t have the capacity to keep the network running during an outage. When that happens, the business still ends up offline, despite believing they were protected.
4. Overcomplication
If your organization has a confusing setup that layers multiple network tools and configurations without a unified design, it’s only a matter of time before something breaks. Without clear documentation, troubleshooting becomes slow and error-prone, unnecessarily extending downtime.
5. Narrow Focus on Connectivity
Redundancy isn’t only about internet connections. It also includes power, routing, authentication, and cloud services. A single weakness in any of these areas can interrupt access even when the main network seems healthy.
What Reliable Redundancy Looks Like
The good news is that redundancy doesn’t have to be complicated or unreliable. With the right design and proactive management, backup systems can do exactly what they’re meant to: keep your business running when something goes wrong.
Creating dependable uptime is about designing for independence. Here’s how you can accomplish that goal:
Understand Your Network Topology
A reliable network starts with visibility. It’s important that you know how your network is structured and where the single points of failure are. That involves keeping diagrams current and accurate, while reviewing them regularly. Redundancy only works when it matches reality and reflects how your network actually operates today, not how it looked a year ago.
Build Diversity into Your Connections
Redundancy only works if your backups truly act independently. Using two internet lines from the same provider or through the same physical pathway won’t protect you if a construction crew cuts that shared line or if your provider experiences an outage. To create meaningful diversity, mix your connection types or vendors. For instance, you could pair fibre with LTE or 5G, or use two separate carriers with different infrastructure routes. The goal is to make sure that when one system fails, the other remains unaffected and ready to take over.
Layer Your Protection
A strong network design doesn’t rely on a single safety net. Each part of your environment (connectivity, data, applications, and power) should have its own backup plan. For example, cloud applications should sync to multiple regions, local data should back up off-site, and critical systems should run on equipment protected by uninterruptible power supplies. By building protection into each layer, you reduce the risk of one weak point taking everything else down. Think of it as adding stability step by step, so your business stays up and running no matter where a failure starts.
Test Regularly
Even the best redundancy plan can fall apart if it’s never tried in real conditions. A failover test helps you see how your network behaves under pressure and whether systems actually switch as expected. Schedule these tests in controlled windows and document the results. You might uncover small issues such as a misconfigured router, outdated firmware, or staff who are unsure of the protocol during an outage. Catching those details in testing is far better than discovering them in the middle of an emergency.
How Managed IT Services Simplify Network Management
For many small and mid-sized businesses, managing network redundancy internally isn’t realistic. It requires time, planning, and technical expertise, which are resources most teams can’t spare.
Rather than doing it on your own, a managed IT services provider can offload that work. They offer expertise and robust tools to design, implement, and test redundancy, as well as optimize your overall network management. You won’t just get support to fix surface-level problems when you partner with Bulletproof IT. You’ll get a partner who will study the bigger picture, find the root causes, and help you strengthen the systems behind your network, so they keep running smoothly.
With our proactive measures, such as automated failover, diverse connectivity, and continuous monitoring, you’ll experience fewer interruptions, less stress, and have the time and confidence to support your customers.
Ready for a More Reliable Network?
You don’t have to be an IT expert to protect your business from downtime. The right strategy and support can keep your systems running, even when the unexpected happens.
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Bulletproof IT can handle your cloud, your network, and everything else your team relies on, so you can accomplish your biggest goals.