PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff is scheduled for Wednesday, October 9th at 4 AM for much of Northern California. For planning purposes, PG&E suggests customers prepare for outages that could last several days. Please take appropriate actions to ensure the safety of your systems if you are in a targeted shutdown area. See if your area is affected here...

5 Things you should do TODAY (and everyday) to preserve your IT systems

November 6th, 2013 by admin

Close up of a keyboard with a stethoscope resting on the left side

The 5 basic tips below are essential to maintaining the health and efficiency of your network, servers, and computer systems. Please consult an expert IT Consultant or Managed Service Provider for more information about protecting your IT systems.

  • 1. BACKUP - Data loss is a very real threat and can be disastrous for Small to Medium Size Businesses (SMBs). You would be shocked how few SMBs actually have regular and effective backup procedures in place. Symantec estimates that 23% of these businesses back up their data and systems on a daily basis and less than 50% backup weekly.

    Data loss can happen at any time and from any number of events (hacking, virus, disaster, human error, electrical outage, system malfunction, etc), and should therefore be a number one priority for SMBs. You should be backing up data on a daily basis (though many businesses may require multiple times throughout the day) - this offers the greatest business continuity protection.  A Managed Service Provider can work with you to determine an effective backup system and schedule.

  • 2. Check Backup procedures frequently and consistently- Picture this: you install a great new backup system, set it on a regular backup schedule, and then leave it to its own devices, confident it is working as it should behind the scenes. In a year’s time your server malfunctions and you lose a substantial amount of data. You run to check the backups and discover OH NO! They’re not all here! You realize that the system wasn’t backing up certain critical data on your server. If you had been checking your backups regularly, you would have known there was a problem and remedied the issue long ago. Lesson learned - check your backup procedures on a consistent basis to ensure they are working properly, are not corrupted, and and are backing up ALL of your data.
  • 3. Firewalls and Virus Protection – It is absolutely critical that every SMB have updated virus protection and firewalls in place, and that it is enabled on every desktop. You would be shocked how many businesses have disabled, expired, or even no virus protection at all. This is a disaster waiting to happen. Their systems, technology, and employees are defenseless against virus attacks via email, unprotected websites, downloads, etc. And due to insufficient firewall protection many SMBs will have their network accessed by a hacker. The scariest part about this is that in all likelihood, they will be completely unaware it is happening!
  • 4. Examine Server Drives Regularly – As server drives fill to critical levels, they can cause a host of issues including program and server crashes and general sluggishness.  It is essential you monitor and maintain your server drives regularly to prevent any issues in the future. If you need assistance with this, IT Managed Service Providers can be a great help for regular monitoring and maintenance of your servers and systems.
  • 5. Check Critical Log Files Regularly – The majority of IT issues don’t come about quickly in a sudden disaster-type situation, but develop over time from a small glitch into a much more dangerous problem. Reviewing your critical built-in log files on a consistent basis can help identify problems before they have grown out of control.

Posted in: Managed IT Services