Lately, many businesses have been putting off server, workstation, laptop and printer upgrades. This is bad for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the increase in the risk of failure. A ten year old server is much more likely to have problems than a two year old server. The signs you need an infrastructure upgrade are as follows.
- You have noticed a sharp increase in IT support costs. Often times, it cost more to keep sick hardware running than to replace it.
- Your workers have a great deal of downtime. With the recent downturn in the economy, most workers are asked to do more work with less support. I less productive worker is even more detrimental to the bottom line in this situation
- You have weird, unexplainable issues. Often times, hardware and software do not fail completely. Rather, it starts to have trouble. When you and your staff find more than normal levels of frustration with your computers, it may be time for help.
- You find yourself worrying about the heath of you computer system. If you go to work every day and hope you computer system did not stop working overnight, you need an upgrade. No one likes to spend money, but if you sense an increased level of risk, you are probably right.
While it is often hard to justify replacing equipment that is still mostly working, it is much cheaper to upgrade in an orderly fashion. If you wait until it fails, there are no guarantees that you will be able to recover everything.
So, in order to avoid major disasters, open your eyes and listen to your gut. If you want more advice or a professional opinion, seek out a network evaluation or a company with experience in network design and IT support.
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