Share this
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
For years, enterprises have depended on undersea cables and single-provider internet connections to power their global operations. While this setup worked in stable environments, it’s increasingly vulnerable to disruptions especially in regions like the Middle East where submarine cable cuts and geopolitical risks are common.
Today, businesses require more than just connectivity, they need resilient IP transit that can withstand outages and reroute traffic instantly. This is where Orixcom IP Transit solution stands out.
Engineered for high availability using redundant paths, diverse upstream providers, and dynamic failover technologies to ensure uninterrupted service even when primary routes fail, Orixcom’s solution delivers performance whilst eliminating possibility of network disruptions.
This blog will explore:
- What network resiliency means and why it matters
- How IP transit providers like Orixcom maintain uptime during cable cuts
- The role of automatic failover and SDN in ensuring continuity
- Best practices for building internet redundancy
- How Orixcom’s infrastructure supports enterprises in disruption-prone regions
With a resilient IP Transit solution, businesses gain more than just bandwidth—they gain peace of mind, knowing their connectivity is protected against the unexpected.
What Is Network Resiliency and Why Is It Important?
What Is Network Resilience?
Network resilience refers to a network’s ability to withstand disruptions, recover swiftly from failures, and continue delivering essential services—even under degraded conditions. It’s not just about uptime; it’s about ensuring uninterrupted connectivity in the face of challenges such as submarine cable cuts, cyberattacks, hardware faults, or natural disasters.
In regions like the Middle East, where infrastructure vulnerabilities and geopolitical risks heighten the likelihood of internet disruptions, resilient networks are vital for maintaining business continuity and operational integrity.
Core Pillars of Network Resilience
- Disruption Resistance: A resilient network is built to absorb shocks, whether physical or logical and continue functioning without service interruption.
- Rapid Recovery: Systems are designed to detect failures instantly and reroute traffic or restore services with minimal delay, reducing downtime and impact.
- Service Continuity in Degraded Mode: Even when parts of the infrastructure are compromised, the network maintains access to critical services, ensuring operational continuity.
- Adaptability and Scalability: Resilient networks dynamically adjust to changing conditions, scale to meet surges in demand, and evolve with emerging technologies.
- Holistic Design Approach: True resilience goes beyond redundancy. It includes diverse routing paths, robust security protocols, proactive monitoring, and strategic peering relationships.
Key Benefits of Network Resiliency
Network disruptions can happen without warning be it hardware failure or infrastructure damage. In such moments, resiliency becomes the difference between a brief hiccup and a full-blown outage. Here are the key reasons why building a resilient network is essential for any modern enterprise.
-
Business Continuity
Resilient networks keep operations running smoothly during outages by rerouting traffic through backup paths. This ensures that critical services remain accessible, avoiding costly interruptions and delays.
-
Customer Trust
Downtime can erode customer confidence. A resilient network prevents service disruptions, helping businesses maintain a reliable user experience and protect their brand reputation.
-
Revenue Protection
Every minute of downtime can translate into financial loss. Network resiliency minimises these risks by ensuring uninterrupted access to revenue-generating platforms and services.
-
Security
During cyberattacks or infrastructure failures, resilient networks maintain connectivity for essential systems. This helps safeguard sensitive data and ensures that security protocols remain active.
-
Operational Efficiency
A resilient network reduces the need for manual intervention during outages, allowing IT teams to focus on strategic tasks rather than firefighting. Automated rerouting and failover mechanisms streamline operations and improve overall network performance.
The Impact of Submarine Cable Cuts on Connectivity
Submarine cables are the invisible backbone of the global internet, carrying over 99% of international data traffic. These fiber-optic lines stretch across oceans, linking continents and enabling everything from video calls to financial transactions. When one of these cables is damaged—whether by natural disasters, ship anchors, or geopolitical conflict—the consequences can be immediate and widespread.
A recent example occurred on September 6, 2025, when multiple undersea cables in the Red Sea—including SMW4, IMEWE, and FALCON GCX—were severed near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The incident disrupted internet services across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, with users in the UAE reporting slow speeds and latency spikes. Cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure experienced delays, and telecom providers scrambled to reroute traffic through alternate paths.
Without redundancy and intelligent routing, a single cable cut can cripple connectivity across entire regions.
How Orixcom Ensures Network Stability During Disruptions
Leading IP transit providers like Orixcom mitigate these risks through:
1. Redundant Upstream Providers
Orixcom connects to multiple international transit providers, ensuring that if one path fails, traffic is rerouted through another
2. Geo-Diverse Routing
By leveraging geographically diverse routes, Orixcom avoids single points of failure and ensures network uptime guarantees even during regional outages
3. Smart BGP-Based Failover
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) dynamically reroutes traffic based on real-time network conditions, ensuring seamless connectivity
4. Direct Peering at IXPs
Orixcom peers directly at key global and regional Internet Exchange Points, reducing latency and improving performance
Automatic Failover: The Backbone of Network Resilience
Automatic failover is the mechanism that switches traffic to a backup connection when the primary link fails. But not all failover systems are created equal.
Types of Failovers:
- WAN Failover: Uses health checks to switch to a backup ISP. Simple but not seamless
- Multipath Failover: Both connections are active. Traffic shifts instantly with no session drops
- LTE Backup: Useful for remote sites but can be unstable and costly
Orixcom’s infrastructure supports multipath failover, ensuring that even during submarine cable outages, traffic is rerouted without affecting user experience
Internet Redundancy Solutions for Enterprises
To build a truly resilient network, enterprises must adopt internet redundancy solutions that combine multiple technologies and providers.
Best Practices:
- Carrier Diversity: Use different ISPs to avoid shared infrastructure failures.
- Route Diversity: Ensure data can travel through multiple physical paths.
- Mesh Topology: Enables multiple access points and automatic rerouting.
- SD-WAN Integration: Allows intelligent traffic management and instant failover.
Orixcom’s IP Transit services are designed with these principles, offering 99.999% SLA-backed uptime and scalable bandwidth from 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps.
Connectivity Challenges in the UAE: Service and Support That Make a Difference
For many businesses in the UAE, internet connectivity options can feel limited, and when issues arise, getting timely support is often a challenge. Automated helpdesks and chatbots may not provide the urgent, expert assistance that enterprises need to keep operations running smoothly.
Orixcom takes a different approach:
By leveraging Equinix’s robust data center ecosystem, Orixcom delivers resilient, diverse connectivity options—ensuring your business isn’t dependent on a single route or provider. Most importantly, Orixcom’s dedicated support team means there’s always a real person ready to help, with fast response times and proactive service that keeps your business online and productive.
Case Study: How Orixcom Keeps Businesses Online
During the Red Sea cable incident, Orixcom’s clients in Dubai remained online thanks to:
- Terrestrial Cable Integration: Provided alternative routing when undersea cables failed.
- Real-Time Monitoring: Detected issues instantly and rerouted traffic.
- Failover-Ready Architecture: Ensured zero downtime for mission-critical applications.
This proactive approach demonstrates how Orixcom’s infrastructure is built not just for performance—but for resilience.
Conclusion: Future-Proofing Your Connectivity with Orixcom
In an era where network disruptions are inevitable, resilient IP transit is the key to maintaining business continuity. Orixcom’s multi-layered approach—combining redundant upstreams, smart routing, and SLA-backed services—ensures that your enterprise stays online, no matter what.
Whether you're facing submarine cable cuts, regional outages, or cyber threats, Orixcom’s IP Transit is your shield against downtime.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Why are submarine cable cuts a major concern?
Submarine cables carry over 99% of international internet traffic. When damaged, they can cause widespread disruptions across regions. These incidents highlight the need for redundant routing and resilient IP transit to maintain connectivity during such outages.
- How does Orixcom ensure network uptime during cable cuts?
Orixcom uses multiple upstream providers, geo-diverse routing, and smart BGP failover to reroute traffic instantly. This multi-layered approach ensures high availability and SLA-backed uptime even during submarine cable disruptions.
- What is automatic failover and how does it work?
Automatic failover detects network failures and instantly switches traffic to a backup route or provider. Orixcom’s multipath failover ensures seamless transitions without session drops, keeping applications and services online without interruption.
- What is BGP and why is it important for resilience?
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is used to exchange routing information between networks. It enables dynamic rerouting of traffic during outages, making it essential for maintaining connectivity in resilient IP transit setups.
- How does Orixcom support businesses in the Middle East?
Orixcom offers regionally optimised IP transit with direct peering, redundant routes, and terrestrial cable integration. This ensures reliable connectivity even during regional disruptions, making it ideal for enterprises in the Middle East.
Share Your Thoughts