Maintenance

Like your car and most other equipment, your computer network requires maintenance and attention to run smoothly. An ounce of prevention can prevent business disaster.

Most small businesses can’t afford to hire a qualified network engineer proficient in all aspects of network administration. It’s also unlikely they are going to replace a desktop computer every 3 years if it’s still working. Similarly, they don’t need database administrators or three levels of help desk personnel.

Your ‘little’ network of 5 or 15 users has thousands of moving parts. All of the pieces that have to work together to keep the network operating. There is operating system coding, switch ports, routers, security components for intrusion and malware/spyware/virus protection, cables, backup software and media, productivity tools like Office, plus all notebooks, desktops and printers have software applications that have to fit together for a smooth running network. Servers have even more sophisticated operating systems and hardware components.

This can be a foreign world. You want to concentrate on their business and not worry about their technology needs. The usual scenario is that you find a technology company you can trust, allow them to make recommendations and then call when something isn’t working. The small-to-medium business may not know why something is wrong – just that it isn’t working the way it was. Sometimes the user themselves may find a workaround. This could save money in the short run because of a saved time-and-material service call. Other times this do-it-yourself method could create unseen problems in other areas costing more time and money later to fix the issue correctly.

Why is this important? All computer equipment and software is in a constant state of degradation. From the moment something is installed it begins to work less efficiently. A common example is the disk drive. A disk drive generates errors from the moment it is installed and powered up. Dozens of errors are generated daily. Many of these are corrected automatically by the operating system – but over time the amount of these errors increase. A disk drive doesn’t suddenly fail. It degrades to the point that it eventually becomes inoperable and crashes.  You want that failing drive replaced before it fails- avoiding business interruption.

Monitoring

Within the last few years, software products that have many of the capabilities used in by large network centers have become more available and much more affordable. These software products give an IT company the ability to monitor almost all aspects of their clients’ network infrastructure remotely. In a way, it’s like the small business is hiring a full time network administrator to make sure nothing is going wrong with their network at a severely reduced cost compared to a full-time administrator.

A good monitoring system can watch thousands of aspects of a network, catching problems when they’re still minor and making the necessary corrections. Making these corrections saves time and money by preventing problems as simple as not being able to log in, or the server running slowly, to more devastating issues like system failures.

We set up systems to alert us of any possible problems- before they affect your ability to work, and make sure someone is always watching.

Keep your systems running efficiently

By monitoring key performance elements – such as memory usage and processes, processor performance and bandwidth – and making the appropriate changes when needed, we can keep a network running smoothly and proficiently.  Our management programs are able to automatically apply updates and patches and schedule defrags to run regularly keeping servers, routers and workstations clean and current. This also reduces diagnostic time when problems do occur.

Reduce your IT costs

In most cases, annual cost outlays don’t change that much with regular maintenance and monitoring. You save by having users and a network with fewer problems running more efficiently. You will also have more peace-of-mind knowing that someone trained in network administration is monitoring your network all the time. In addition, remote support tools save by allowing many problems to be resolved remotely rather than requiring a visit to your office.

We recommend a proactive, managed approach.