The document summarizes the top 5 questions network engineers at EarthLink are asked by prospective customers. The questions focus on business issues like redundancy, availability, compliance, cloud services, and simplifying operations. For each question, the engineers provide insights into how they evaluate customers' needs and focus on understanding applications and business objectives rather than technical specifications. They emphasize the importance of consolidation with a single network provider and helping customers free up time and resources.

1. Ask the Experts:
Top 5 Questions Asked of
EarthLink Network Engineers
An Industry Brief to Support Business/IT Leaders as they
Evaluate Network Service Providers
www.earthlink.com

2. 2
Anyone who watches Jeopardy! can tell you
that sometimes, knowing the right question is
the best way to show your intellect and achieve
strong ROI (“Alex, What was The War of 1812?”)
This applies to buying IT services, especially
with network services, which happen to be
going through a period of significant change. For
anyone looking at new or upgraded solutions,
knowing what kinds of questions to ask is central
to your ability to compare/contrast offerings and
understand important issues relative to your
business needs.
Asking the right questions
helps you cut through the
hype and lets prospective
vendors know they’re dealing
with a knowledgeable buyer.
This will help you get the most
insightful recommendations and
strongest proposal/pricing as
a result. Something to keep in
mind as you draft your RFP or
less formal request for a quote.
To help put together a list of Jeopardy!-
worthy questions, we asked a few of our
leading network engineers to weigh in.
You’ll find their answers to be helpful
and a bit surprising.

3. 3
An introduction from the engineers
Surprisingly, our team says prospective customers
no longer save technical questions for the
engineers. In fact, they don’t typically ask a lot
of technical questions at all, since that is seen as
somewhat of a commodity.
What people DO ask about are business issues, and
about how we approach and solve problems. The
engineers love such questions because they help
us showcase how we might address the customer’s
challenges, objectives and aspirations. That’s where
our engineers add the most value.
With that in mind, they encourage prospective
buyers to ask questions that let engineers show
what their company brings to the table, and leads
to productive discussion where they can:
• Probe to understand the buyer’s core business
• Learn about their critical applications
• Understand how they currently connect and
engage with customers
• Determine how they currently use technology
to meet business objectives
Following are five common questions
engineers encounter; the kind to ask your
prospective Network Service Provider (NSP)
to see how they respond. Their answers may
give you far better insight than you’d ever get
simply reading their RFP.

4. 4
Q1: What’s your approach to redundancy and
availability for “always-on” apps?
Redundancy, backup and failover for applications are
central to everyone, especially customers moving
steadily to the cloud. They want to know our thoughts
on using a single provider for this; why consolidate
vs. the traditional dual provider approach? They also
want to know how this applies to critical, performance
sensitive applications like voice. Or how we provide
high levels of uptime to create an “always-on” network
for critical, “always-on” apps.
The engineers respond:
The first thing we do is ask about their business
applications and current architecture, how they’re
using the cloud and how that might change. This
will impact how we design for redundancy and
availability, as there is no single answer for every
environment.
Previously it was common to look at dual carriers.
Today, with the introduction of SD-WAN, and
with so many aspects of business becoming truly
dependent on the network, there’s greater value
using a single vendor approach. In fact, with
SD-WAN the second network is not simply a
“backup” or “failover” but an essential part of
active/active network architecture.
If the customer is simply looking for voice failover, or
a traditional passive backup network, we can provide
that using multiple options – DSL, broadband,
wireless, etc. – but we still suggest consolidation
with one NSP. With the increasing complexity of
WANs and what they’re being used for, a single
source approach offers the best way to provide an
“always-on” environment for “always-on”, business
critical applications.
Q2: How do you approach availability in the
last mile?
The last mile has always been a concern for customers
we talk to, especially those with many locations,
since it’s essential to network availability. Questions
regarding the last mile often cover a variety of related
topics, though they all revolve around the need for an
access solution that meets the customer’s performance
requirements and budget.
The engineers respond:
EarthLink uses a diverse pool of access vendors
and technologies to meet our customers’ specific
demands, either through direct connectivity or
IP-based access mediums. We’re also constantly
augmenting our access portfolio to add new
vendors and products, to stay ahead of that
demand. We believe this is an area where a
great NSP can shine, by having geographically
rich last mile options to deliver the performance
and reliability businesses need.
If we do run into difficulty using our existing
portfolio of vendors, we’ve developed IPsec
technology to deliver our product set over a
customer’s current access design.

5. 5
Q3: How does EarthLink help reduce the
burden of PCI compliance?
PCI compliance is a complex, critical issue for
anyone dealing with credit card transactions, which
these days is nearly everyone. There is a bit of
confusion though on the role of the network, the
differences between compliance and certification,
and how that can impact your selection of an NSP.
The engineers respond:
While overall PCI compliance is ultimately
the responsibility of the customer, EarthLink
can help our customers in a number of ways
– especially by “reducing their scope” – in
order to make ongoing management of PCI
compliance as simple as possible. EarthLink
has a range of products and services that meet
the latest PCI standards. Working in partnership
with our customers and by leveraging our deep
experience with both merchants and processors,
we can provide ongoing consultation to help
reduce risk and to achieve, maintain and validate
PCI compliance requirements.
Q4: What’s your approach to the cloud…
performance, security, everything?
Cloud migration has outpaced the evolution
of networks supporting all those new XaaS
implementations. IT leaders are increasingly
aware of this and they seek answers to a myriad
of questions about how we can help them access
apps safely and efficiently wherever they are.
The engineers respond:
Our nationwide network enables us to connect
customers to cloud-based, X-as-a-Service
applications with the same efficiency, reliability
and security as we’ve always done for traditional
enterprise applications. To explain this, we talk
with the customer to understand the types of
workloads they’re running, as certain 3rd party
cloud providers are better at some types of
workloads than others. We help them look at this in
a holistic way since the answer is not as dependent
on the network as it is on the cloud provider.
We also talk about how to establish direct
connections to 3rd party cloud providers to
ensure security, support, scalable “pay as you
go” connectivity, and to gain visibility and
control over applications and performance.
Making sure your NSP has experience with
these technologies is more essential than
ever. Having a solution and a point-of-view
with regard to SD-WAN is also essential to
addressing this question.

6. 6
Q5: How can you help simplify our day-to-day operations?
IT leaders and their teams are being stretched further than ever. When they speak
to our engineers, they ask a variety of questions about our operational support
structure, managed services, who monitors the network, etc. They ask how our
NOC is structured, whether we’re equipped to support consolidation of new kinds
of services, how we stack up against using multiple best-of-breed vendors, and
how we approach this overall challenge in a unique way.
The engineers respond:
When they ask about support, what customers really want to know is how
we can help make their lives a bit easier. So they ask how we can reduce the
burden on their shoulders so they can focus on more strategic vs. tactical
issues. We see this in companies of all sizes, though more so when there’s a
small IT staff being stretched to the limit.
To address this, we’ll show how visibility across their network offers greatly
enhanced capability while also saving time and effort. We’ll talk about the
benefit of our fully-staffed, 24x7, geographically dispersed NOCs, our systems
and controls for monitoring managed services and our network. And we’ll
show the benefits of our myLink self-service portal, which provides simple,
single-pane access to network monitoring and billing services. Finally, we’ll
cover our support solutions, including enhanced platinum level monitoring
for managed services.
It really comes down to our ability to truly partner with them, so they can
focus on other things that require their attention. The ability for an NSP to
do this is really what separates one provider from another these days.

7. 7
It all comes down to trust
The role of the network engineer has clearly changed, from engineering the
network, to engineering solutions to creatively and successfully address business
challenges and needs. During the process of evaluating an NSP for potential
use, take time to talk to their engineers about how they help solve business
issues, because this is what they should be able to do best. Anyone in any
NOC can talk about a lot of technical mumbo jumbo, but by asking tough
business questions of engineers, you’ll be able to arm yourself with the right
information to make the best possible buying decision to serve your needs
today and in years to come.
Meet our panel of network engineers
Chris Johnson — Principal Solutions Architect. More than 16 years of
experience in the network space, including six years in communications
for the United States Air Force.
Randy Landers — Leads our Principal Solutions Architects team.
Broad experience building and implementing solutions to drive
innovation and growth.
Sam Maraghy — EarthLink VP/director of engineering, Solutions Architects
with 20+ years progressive experience in IT with a focus on the telecom
space. Hands on experience as a technical manager, senior network
architect, and VP/director of engineering in leading edge companies.
Mike Mundorff — Principal Solutions Architect with over 25
years of experience in the industry providing global solutions to
Fortune 500 companies.
Charles Reyes — Principal Solutions Architect. As a CCIE, brings
experience in network operations, architecture, and design to help
customers with new and innovative voice and data solutions.
About Earthlink
EarthLink is a leading network services provider dedicated to delivering great
customer experiences in a cloud connected world. We help thousands of multi-
location businesses securely establish critical connections in the cloud.
Contact us at 844-856-1204
connect@elnk.com | www.earthlink.com
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