Every new car purchase comes with a recommended maintenance schedule to ensure safety and efficient vehicle usage. Computer systems need the same kind of attention to prevent downtime and security threats from disrupting your week.
Why Does My Business Need Managed Services?
Managed Services helps protect your business by identifying potential problems and shortcomings in your technology infrastructure before they become a major issue. A preventative maintenance approach provides peace of mind and flexibility to make informed decisions about technology investments.
Below are some of the recommended technology maintenance tasks that are easily outsourced to a managed services provider like Strategy.
Monitoring Server and Network Health
Network and servers are the heart of a technology infrastructure. Regular reviews of application and system error logs are used to determine if errors reflect a deeper issue, before they affect server performance and cause downtime or data loss. Additionally, monitoring data storage capacity provides advanced warning when the servers are near their data limit and need an upgrade.
Updating Licenses and Software
Keeping your software up to date will help protect the system from security threats and improve performance. Instead of taking valuable time to track and install the latest versions, consider making these updates part of a managed services agreement.
- Antivirus: Securing your system by using appropriate anti-virus software is key. This is an easy, inexpensive way to protect your business and your data.
- Client-specific software: You may use applications unique to your industry, for example: Point of Sale (POS) systems for retail stores, eCommerce software for online retailers, healthcare software for dentists and doctors, etc.
- Microsoft: Weekly updates are available for Windows users, but not all may need to be applied. To keep software current, a regular review of available updates will help determine if updates are necessary and beneficial.
Data Backups
Customer and transaction data is critical to your business, and even a day or two of down time can cost your company thousands. Back-ups are often cloud based but may reside onsite or offsite. If you are a medical office, regular back-ups are an essential part of your HIPAA compliance.
Monthly Reports
Monthly managed services reports often include data about server and network performance, back-up capacity and a summary of the data, and recommendations.
Managed services will help you protect your technology investment by preventing downtime and security threats. And when you need help to implement changes in your network, hardware or software, Strategy has experienced I.T. specialists to provide help desk support as well. We make technology work for you! Contact us today.
