IT Support – 10 Tips For Companies
IT Support is a critical aspect in running a small business. Reliability at a great price is essential to stay competitive in most industries. An unreliable IT system can not only waste your company’s time and resources it can be extremely frustrating. There are a few tips that can save your company time and money when planning a new IT System or upgrading or fixing an existing one
- Buy server hardware that has great onsite warranty from a reliable vendor like HP, Dell, IBM, and Acer. The extra few dollars saved in buying cheaper white non brand hardware is usually lost in the first warranty claim
- Server vendors now offer 5 years warranty on their hardware. This extends the life of your investment
- Compare and understand OEM licensing versa normal licensing from Microsoft. Understand open source is free to download not install and maintain
- Buy a UPS to protect your Server
- Ensure your IT Support vendor offers monitoring. So that you’re most crucial part of your network is pro-actively supported.
- Research any third party applications that you purchase to run in your environment. A large percentage SME buy poorly and spend more on an ongoing basis to just keep poor applications running
- Check your backups on a regular basis and know what is in the backup.
- Have more then 1 backup of your system on different media eg Tape and Hard disk. Have at least 4 weeks worth of backups and keep 1 monthly copy
- Plan for a disaster and test that plan
- Choose your IT Support consultants carefully