27/05/2015

YOUR I.T. STATUS – ARE YOU IN GOOD SHAPE

I.T. can and will fail. The goal in I.T. is to mitigate as best as possible the effect to work output when a failure occurs. i.e. If your phones go down, you can still email, use the database and files. If the internal server went down you could still use the phones, the database and email. If the email went down you could still use files, phones and the database. If the database went down you could still use email, files and phones. If the ADSL went down you could still use files (while in the building) and phones. When you have an internal fast server it is tempting to put everything on that server but you are then creating a new single point of failure.

Currently if you have everything on the ‘cloud’ if your ADSL went down all you have left working properly is your phones. If the phone line went down you would probably lose ADSL and phones leaving you with very little working! Redundancy is a good idea for items in your control where they are mission critical and anything over 2 hours downtime would cost more than the redundant item cost. It’s your decision what is mission critical and how far to take the redundancy.

Backup is the next important thing to consider and is a very big subject. By having a single point for all I.T. it does make backup easier but as we said above, a single point of I.T. is not a good idea. Backup needs to be automated, cycled over more than one physical device, multi levels deep and physically stored in more than one place at one time. Good software and planning will cover this.

Arm yourself with these thoughts for your next I.T. meeting!

If you are not sure of your companies I.T. status and would like an I.T. status update and some I.T. Support, maybe we could help.

GetOnIt have been supporting local businesses in Bournemouth, Dorset with their I.T. since 1999. Prices start from £69 per month.