Look after your IT and it will look after you
March 2009
When was the last time you had your car serviced? Presumably if the manufacturer issued a recall you wouldn’t think twice about taking the car to a garage to rectify the problem. Now ask yourself when was the last time you had your IT system serviced. And have you applied those security patches you have been advised about? In many ways IT systems and cars are very similar. They both involve cutting-edge technology and it’s difficult to imagine life without them.
Should either fail then you are likely to suffer major inconvenience at best. The thought of being stuck in a dark country lane at night is hardly appealing, yet the thought of losing all of your data or having confidential information stolen should be equally unappealing. However, people often take very different views when it comes to looking after the two.
Whereas cars are regularly serviced, many people turn a blind eye to their IT. Instead of having systems routinely checked and fixed they are often ignored until some catastrophe befalls them, causing significant disruption to the business at large. Critical activities such as implementing and checking backup systems are overlooked and only when the backup is required is the process found to be faulty and the data missing.
The IT industry is at least partly to blame for this dichotomy. Support contracts are typically based on a “fix when broken” basis - assistance is offered only when problems are encountered or systems have failed. Imagine if the motor industry took the same view. Instead of having your oil changed every 10,000 miles and the car generally checked over, you waited for the engine to seize or the brakes to fail before you took the car (or what was left of it!) to the garage for attention. IT support contracts are more like warranties, putting the problem right after failure rather than helping to prevent the problem in the first place.
Businesses should regularly maintain their systems in the same way they service their vehicles. System error logs can often provide an early warning of impending problems, preventing the issue from becoming a disaster. Anti-virus software should be updated to protect from emerging threats. Equally, software patches should be applied to plug the holes these have been designed to fix. Backup systems should be checked to ensure all critical data is being copied and a trial restore conducted to test whether the data really could be recovered if needed.
Rather than waiting for failures, systems should be regularly reviewed to ensure they are running smoothly. Diamond Discovery resellers’ “Virtual IT Manager” service is specifically designed to address these issues. Costs can also be spread over regular payments to assist cash flow. We would never claim that all problems can be predicted, but when faults do occur, properly managed systems should be less impacted.
Which brings us neatly back to where we started – look after your IT systems and they will continue to look after you and your business.
Call your local Diamond Discovery Reseller for more information.