WAN configuration
It is important that your WAN is configured to ensure bandwidth, uptime, and security:
• 1.5 Mbit/s UP AND DOWN (minimum), 3.0 or more Mbit/s UP AND DOWN (preferred) bandwidth dedicated to each 20 remote salespoints.
Important: any sharing of this service with other applications degrades performance – if you need to share, have MORE than 3.0 Mbit/s and utilize Quality of Service tools to guarantee the minimum for Siriusware applications.
• Do not use a connection with high latency (such as a satellite based service)
• Be aware that bandwidth is not guaranteed if you use a Cable or DSL internet connection. It is much better to purchase a point-to-point circuit that has guaranteed bandwidth and uptime.
• Secure and encrypt the data connection(s). See Siriusware’s PA-DSS Implementation Guide for more information.
• Plan for and invest in reliability: consider redundant connections, redundant routers, battery backup, etc. Purchasing and configuring redundant WAN connections from separate carriers is highly recommended. You can then configure firewalls and routers to fail over to the other connection if one goes down or to use the two together to increase bandwidth.
The most important consideration is bandwidth management. Regardless of the bandwidth between the remote site and central server, your network must guarantee the above minimum bandwidth for Siriusware applications by configuring your router/firewall appropriately. This protects your Siriusware applications from being affected by other large data transfers such as downloads or video. The same can be done for ProtoBase traffic to ensure fast credit card authorizations.
In summary, without a reliable WAN, you will not be satisfied with the performance of the Siriusware system and potentially experience data corruption. Your local data may become out of sync with the server data requiring frequent manual rebuilding of the local data.