Computer Maintenance

Computer Maintenance - Computer and server maintenance is an often overlooked aspect of a properly run small business. We have 3000 miles engrained in our brains when it comes to changing the oil in our cars, yet we often believe that computers and servers can run forever without interaction. Unfortunately, that is the worst attitude to have. Here are the top ten reasons that you must perform maintenance on your computers and servers:

1. Proactive Pays, reactive makes you pay - When downtime does occur, how much do you lose while employees are unable to work? If it's one computer, your losses can range from a nuisance to a major problem. If it's one server, your losses can be catastrophic. Unless you happen to have an IT contract, you may not get a tech onsite for a hardware failure within hours or maybe not even the same day. And even if a tech arrives within hours, there is no guarantee how long a repair will take. It is best to avoid hardware failure by performing periodic maintenance of your systems to detect and prevent problems before they occur.

2. Early Detection - In many cases we can detect problems long before they shut your computer or server down. We can recognize symptoms of an impending disaster before it's too late. We can review system event logs and understand patterns of erros and warnings. We can correct these errors before your computer or server no longer gets past the loading Windows screen and you panic as you take your first sip of that morning coffee.

3. Improved Proficiency - Very simple. Your employees can work faster and get more done with a faster PC and network.

4. Time is an enemy - Maintenance is not just about preventing hardware failures, but also about restoring damage to the operating system and software applications that is normal over the course of time. Temp files build up, hard drives become fragmented. Clutter builds up in your list of programs and services that automatically start when Windows boots up. These issues can be resolved with regular maintenance.

5. Data Integrity - Are you backing up your data? Most of my clients insist they are. But are you sure? What exactly are you backing up? A new client of ours insisted they had a bulletproof backup system. They had a tape drive in their server and were swapping the tapes daily, weekly and monthly. On our initial visit they were embarrassed to find out they were swapping empty tapes for two years because someone had changed the administrator password years ago and the backups no longer ran. You need to regularly check backup logs and even restore a backup from time to time to ensure your critical data is actually being protected.

6. Improved Security - We can also view logs from your antivirus and antispyware programs and determine if there are threats located on your computer that you are not aware of. Let's face it, we rarely read the messages that pop up from Windows. We usually press the 'OK' button before we realize what program is sending us the message.

7. Critical Updates - Maintenance includes Windows security updates, updates of your virus and spyware programs. New threats against Windows and Internet Explorer come out every day. If your version of Windows, your antivirus or your antispyware programs are not up to date they are doing you no good protecting you from emerging threats.

8. Intrusion Detection - Have you ever viewed your firewall logs? If you did, would you know what they meant? Most hackers don't care that you're not a fortune 500 company. They would be happy to hack into your network just so they could use your hard drive space to host pirated software, games and porn for download through bittorrent and warez. Hackers have programs that randomly scan thousands of IP addresses per minute and they will utilize any IP address left unprotected. By regularly reviewing firewall logs, we can determine if your network has been compromised and how often attacks on your network are attempted.

9. Onsite Experience - 100% of the time that we perform server or computer maintenance we are asked at least a few questions that clients have been 'saving' for a while. Maybe about an error message that routinely pops up or a question about how to merge cells in Excel. Questions the end user is unable to resolve on their own, but determine are not significant enough to warrant a service call. While onsite we often announce the latest security threats and give our clients advice on how to avoid or detect them. Our onsite presence often gives clients access to our brains when no service calls are needed.

10. Overall Expense - Every Company, even non-profits, has a budget and hates to spend money. While routine maintenance is a recurring expense, it is actually less expensive to pay for maintenance than it is to pay neglecting it. Hardware failures, software errors and downtime that could have been avoided is difficult to quantify in terms of dollars. However, all fortune 500 companies have teams of full time IT guys on staff to keep their computers and servers running. There is a reason they do that and it's not because they love to throw away money. We can all save a few buck by not changing the oil, breaks or tires on our cars, but how much will it cost when that lack of maintenance catches up to us? You can't place a dollar amount on those potential losses. Can you place a dollar amount on your business data?

Contact us today for more information on computer and server maintenance. We can give you an idea of exactly how often maintenance should be performed in your office and we can tailor a maintenance plan to specifically meet your needs. You will be surprised how little preventative maintenance is required to ensure that your computers and servers keep running uninterrupted.