In today’s budget-conscious business world, many IT organizations are being forced to do more with less. Less money means running business critical applications on older hardware, and less man-power means many IT departments are stuck in break/fix mode. This leads to sluggish performance un-necessary downtime that will negatively affect your business.
Break out of break/fix mode and set up a preventative maintenance schedule! Preventative maintenance minimizes downtime that disrupts your business. The first step is to establish a maintenance window, set aside 1-2 hours on a regular basis (every other week, once a month, etc.) and advertise it to your company. Maintenance windows are typically outside of business hours so there is little to no effect on users.
Next, decide what will be maintained a when. Here are the key areas to focus on:
- Software patches (OS and Application)
- Hardware updates (Firmware and Bios)
- OS maintenance (disk defragmentation, clean-up, de-duplication)
- Backups (don’t typically cause downtime, and should be performed on a more regular basis)
- Hardware maintenance (Diagnostics, physical inspection, cleaning)
After you determine a preventative maintenance schedule, there is one final thing to remember: STICK TO IT! Spending 2-4 hours a month can prevent several hours of downtime and un-necessary business impact.
PEI’s Managed Service offering can provide all of the above and more for your organization. 24/7 monitoring, notifications and alerts, preventative maintenance, predictive and proactive systems management, and help desk support. For more information, give us a call at 303-786-7474.
Andy Shaffer, PEI
