Connectivity Template
A hands-on template to evaluate, compare, and select connectivity solutions for your organization.
Connectivity is the backbone of every modern business, and making the right decisions about network connections is critical for operational success, productivity, and resilience. Organizations need to evaluate all their locations, users, applications, and redundancy requirements to understand exactly what bandwidth, latency, and reliability they require. By documenting user counts, device inventories, IoT endpoints, and latency-sensitive applications, companies can establish their baseline connectivity needs. Once requirements are understood, it is essential to compare available technologies—including fiber, broadband, wireless, SD-WAN, MPLS, and dedicated circuits—evaluating factors such as throughput, jitter, packet loss, cost, and service-level agreements.
Step 1: Document Business Requirements
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Item |
Details |
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Locations |
List offices, remote sites, data centers |
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Users |
Total number of users/devices per location |
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Applications |
Latency-sensitive apps (VoIP, ERP, cloud apps) |
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Redundancy |
SLA targets, failover requirements |
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Bandwidth Needs |
Peak and average utilization per location |
Tip: Include future growth projections to avoid under-provisioning.
Step 2: Evaluate Connectivity Options
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Provider |
Technology |
Speed |
SLA |
Monthly Cost |
Notes |
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- Technology Options: Fiber, broadband, wireless, SD-WAN, MPLS, dedicated circuits.
- Performance Metrics: Latency, jitter, packet loss, throughput.
- Consideration: Assess provider reliability and customer support history.
Step 3: Risk Assessment Checklist
- Identify single points of failure.
- Confirm redundancy for critical locations.
- Verify failover automation (manual vs. automatic).
Step 4: Decision Matrix
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Criteria |
Provider A |
Provider B |
Provider C |
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Cost |
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Reliability |
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Performance |
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Support |
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Total Score |
Assign scores (e.g., 1–5) for each criterion and calculate totals to guide the final selection.
Step 5: Implementation Checklist
- Confirm installation schedule and dependencies.
- Validate IP addressing, VLANs, routing, and QoS settings.
- Test failover paths and redundancy mechanisms.
- Document network configuration for future reference.
A structured risk assessment ensures that single points of failure are eliminated, failover mechanisms are automated, and critical operations remain uninterrupted. Businesses can then create a decision matrix, scoring providers based on cost, performance, reliability, and support, enabling a clear, rational selection. Finally, an implementation checklist ensures installation schedules, IP addressing, VLANs, routing, and QoS configurations are validated and documented, providing a fully functional, redundant, and future-proof network. This structured approach allows businesses to make confident connectivity decisions that scale with growth, maintain high performance, and minimize operational risk.