by zorro | Feb 29, 2012 | SMB Technology
Every four years we all get something we all need in our busy lives, more time. How we use that extra day may determine whether we become more productive or efficient. Maybe that gift of an extra day will make us more relaxed. This year February 29th falls on a workday, so here are a few ideas to consider. Decide to upgrade your network. PCs, servers routers and other IT assets typically have a useful life of three to five years. As technology advances at a rapid pace, your hardware and software assets become obsolete. Your systems may become slow, sluggish and unreliable. Obsolete hardware and software can contribute to loss of employee productivity or worse. You may be a victim of malicious software attacks or malware because your old network is out of O/S patch compliance. Like changing the battery in your smoke detector, consider upgrading that network at least every four years. Evaluate your line of business applications. Has your business grown or changed? Does that accounting system continue to meet your needs? Many businesses will outgrow their line of business applications within 5 years. Use Leap Day to consider if your account software meets your current set of business rules. If your policies and procedures have changed since the time you first implemented your account software, perhaps the system is holding you back. Now is a good time to make sure your technology is in line with your business strategy. Update your technology roadmap. Now that you have an extra 24 hours, consider your future business and growth strategies. Think through how those strategies may need...
by zorro | Feb 20, 2012 | SMB Technology
Are you thrilled with your IT infrastructure? Chances are you do not want to think about it at all. In fact, the less you worry about your IT Infrastructure and assets the better – right? Small and medium businesses (SMBs) rely on hardware, software, email and data to run daily operations. The slightest hiccup can turn into a huge distraction resulting in loss of productivity for your employees and company. What can you do to take the worry out of your IT? One solution is to adopt an integrated IT strategy. Instead of managing a variety of tools for data protection, remote backup, anti-virus and anti-malware yourself, have your IT Service Provider manage your infrastructure for you. Do you really have time to ensure all your systems are up to date with operating systems (O/S) patches to protect you from the latest security threats? Remember, your network is only as secure as your most vulnerable device. If you miss a patch on one device, your entire network may be out of compliance and compromised. There are plenty of benefits from adopting an integrated approach to managing your IT assets. For starters, having a single source IT Service Provider means you have one organization to call when you have a problem. If you have service level agreement (SLA) in place, you will get a rapid resolution when you run into problems. What’s more, by using the latest remote monitoring and management technologies, your IT Service Provider will identify and resolve problems before you even realize you have them. By proactively managing and monitoring your IT Systems, you will run into...
by zorro | Jan 21, 2012 | SMB Technology
Let’s face it, most businesses rely on their IT Systems to run their daily operations. Whether it is email, eCommerce, accounting or other “line of business” applications, SMBs need the same up time and availability as a large business. Most of the time everything hums right along. When PC’s crash or the network crawls, business can come to a grinding halt. Being proactive with your IT Services can make all the difference in the world in getting up and running again. Here are some tips to ensure you get back up and running quickly: Start off by having all your ducks in a row. When things go wrong, make sure you know who to call. Don’t wait until things are broken to find an IT Service Provider or Computer Repair Company. Establish a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with a reputable IT Service Provider in advance. By having an agreed upon response time and rate schedule, you can ensure a rapid response to your problem that works by your schedule. In many cases you can pay by the hour or by the ticket. You may even be able to include unforeseen computer repairs as part of a fixed fee IT Managed Service Agreement. By having a service level agreement in place, you will save time and money when things go wrong. Also consider having both local and off-site backups of your data. When we thing about backup we typically think about a disaster, theft or other systems failure. Any way you look at it, backup is all about recovery. A local backup can help you find lost files or recover...
