Small businesses who can't necessarily afford an on-staff IT admin can still perform those ever so important maintenance functions on their business servers on their own. Best practices typically dictate a server shouldn't be used by users, so technically there isn't all that much to do on a regular basis to make sure your server gets its oil changed.
1. Get it up to date - Manufacturer and Vendor patches and updates. Critical and should be done as often as possible. Be mindful of the big ones like service packs or browser releases - these can often break as much as they fix at first.
2. Ccleaner - A gem of a program. CCleaner (crap cleaner) is a free download that cleans up temp files, junk on your hard drive... etc. Google it.
3. Verify backups - Make sure your backups are not only completing, but try to actually restore something from the backup media to make sure the data is good.
4. Check security software - Antivirus, Antispyware; whatever it is you run to protect your server make sure it is up to date and operating as intended.
5. Check out the data - Have a look at the data your users are accessing and storing on your server. Are they storing word docs? Music? Movies? Are they compliant with your expectations? Auditing what your users are doing on the server can proactively prevent bigger issues from occurring.
5 steps to keeping your server healthy and to extend its life. My company has tools to automate these steps and report on them regularly. Following them doesn't require computer certifications, just a few minutes of your time each week.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Fixing the Cost of IT Support
For some reason, no one seems to realize value in maintenance or support of their technology infrastructure. Most small business try to live on the premise of "when it breaks, we will buy another" in order to keep their cash free. The problem with this approach is overall it will cost the firm more in lost productivity, time, and wasteful purchasing.
Vision Computer Solutions (http://www.vcsolutions.com) provides support and proactive maintenance services of all computers, servers, and networks at a fixed cost allowing for business owners to budget accordingly. The days of time and material services are coming to an end. With the economy in the rough state it currently is in people want to keep their costs as manageable and predictable as possible.
Managed Services is a term that is thrown around all too much in the IT industry now with everyone claiming they are an MSP. A true MSP, such as my firm, has the technology in place to provide full on support and technology services at a reasonable fixed cost without sacrificing quality of service, or subcontracting the client to a phone bank in Mumbai.
Read about fixed-cost IT services here.
Vision Computer Solutions (http://www.vcsolutions.com) provides support and proactive maintenance services of all computers, servers, and networks at a fixed cost allowing for business owners to budget accordingly. The days of time and material services are coming to an end. With the economy in the rough state it currently is in people want to keep their costs as manageable and predictable as possible.
Managed Services is a term that is thrown around all too much in the IT industry now with everyone claiming they are an MSP. A true MSP, such as my firm, has the technology in place to provide full on support and technology services at a reasonable fixed cost without sacrificing quality of service, or subcontracting the client to a phone bank in Mumbai.
Read about fixed-cost IT services here.
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