How to build a solid digital foundation for hybrid working

The trend toward hybrid working has moved fast in the past year and a half. Forced by circumstances (the pandemic), but certainly also made possible by technology. Organizations in, for example, the business services sector have jumped at the opportunity of the transformation to time- and place-independent work. At banks and insurance companies, employees initially started working from home on large scale, were given new laptops within a short period of time and were able to access all the necessary programs via the cloud.

The shift to working in the cloud has brought new issues. For example, many new laptops no longer have an Ethernet port. Working via a LAN (Local Area Network), or 'wired internet', is therefore no longer possible. A solid Wi-Fi network is required to give employees quick access to the cloud. There were other challenges: from teams at the office who could only log in via the Wi-Fi network to the implementation of Office 365 and thus the phasing out of on-premise applications that often run from their own data centers.

Keep your employees productive

Although Eurofiber is not involved in the deployment of Wi-Fi networks, we do provide the underlying foundation: a solid fiber-optic network. In order to allow every employee to work hybrid efficiently, a robust corporate Internet platform is needed. Preferably redundantly configured as well, so that there is always sufficient bandwidth left over, even in the event of an outage. The employee must have access to the same speeds and experience as in the office.

Many organizations realize that they need to provide such a foundation, so that their employees are and remain productive, no matter where they are working. But where do you start? Some tips on things to look out for when building a good foundation for hybrid working are:

1. Fiber

Long load times, buffering and slow downloads are an annoyance in any workplace. To work efficiently with cloud applications, a good fiber-optic connection is indispensable. The advantage of fiber is a high Internet speed with a high availability (minimum 99.9 percent). Users of our Business Internet solution work with connections up to 10 GB/s. In reality, this provides many advantages for hybrid work environments. For example, a video call goes effortlessly thanks to the connection, without freezing images and faltering audio.

2. Symmetrical connection

In addition to speed, fiber offers another advantage compared to alternative connection technologies. The connection is symmetrical, which means that the upload speed is the same as the download speed. This helps users to easily (and quickly!) send files with multiple devices.

3. Scalability and redundancy

When it comes to Business Internet, you can choose from many flavors and variants. From a standard access point to a complex redundant transit variant for business critical purposes. Redundancy means that the infrastructure is configured in multiple ways. As a result, if a component fails in one place, the Internet connection can never be interrupted. But there are also other ways to ensure continuity. For example, think about support for failover protocols (VRRP and BGP) and a solution that is scalable, so you can easily grow in bandwidth as your usage increases. 

4. Anti-DDoS

With a solution that has scalability and redundancy built in, you are prepared for many scenarios. But in the meantime, cybercriminals are taking action as well. DDoS attacks, for example, are a real threat. The number of attacks is still increasing worldwide. This often results in the inaccessibility of websites and applications, leading to loss of revenue and damage to companies' reputations. By deploying Anti-DDoS reactively and proactively, you protect the traffic on your network and ensure maximum availability.