Technology today is at the forefront of any business that seeks to be competitive in the marketplace. It helps automate otherwise mundane manual tasks and promote productivity and efficiency. This dependency on technology makes IT support personnel ever so valuable in the workplace.
Conventional IT support however is usually provided on a reactive basis, with businesses and users calling for help only after problems occur. While IT departments and professionals are often adept at working very quickly to find and implement solutions, issue resolution often results in considerable down time—sometimes leading to the loss of work hours.
Proactive IT support solutions offer a more advantageous solution. Being able to minimize down time, eliminate the bottlenecks and obstacles technical problems create, ensures efficiency. These goals can be difficult to achieve when a business relies on an outdated conventional approach for IT support. Proactive support allows you to maintain the stable high-performance working environment you need majority of the time.
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Becoming Proactive With IT Support
Proactive support solutions utilize constant monitoring and preventative maintenance in order to keep many of the most common and costly issues from ever developing. A proactive approach ensures that any problems that do occur are addressed promptly, before they can grow into larger concerns.
Staying ahead of any potential problems is key for ensuring greater reliability and superior network performance. Taking a proactive approach to IT support offers many benefits including:
- Improved productivity and worker efficiency
- Increased reliability and performance from networks, terminals and even software applications
- Reduced cost and lower long-term operational IT expenses
In order to be fully effective, proactive IT support requires that all systems and infrastructure are maintained and monitored 24 hours a day. Key systems and resources are susceptible to problems at any time, and constant observation ensures that technical issues are less likely to have a negative impact on daily operations and productivity.
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Disaster Prevention
An ineffective back-up routine, aging equipment and processors, antivirus software that is not updated regularly or any number of other issues can quickly develop into a full blown crisis if left unchecked.
Waiting for a problem to develop before taking action to resolve the situation is not the best course of action. It’s a costly and short-sighted approach. Businesses that employ a reactive IT process under the false assumption that it may reduce IT service costs would be wise to consider the additional expenses and lost revenue associated that a critical IT problem creates. From reducing down-time to ensuring superior data protection, it pays to be proactive.
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What Kind of Monitoring Does Proactive IT Support Involve?
To the trained eye, most issues will display warning signs before they develop into more serious or critical problems. Proactive IT support services and solutions that offer superior network and system monitoring also provide a number of beneficial maintenance tasks including:
- Accessing server event logs in order to detect red-flag issues
- Active and comprehensive antivirus software updates and diagnostics
- Prompt and effective removal of any malware found on the system or network
- Monitoring of backup status in order to ensure critical data has been successfully archived
- Management of firewall systems to ensure they are successfully calibrated and maintained
- Inventory management that will allow outdated equipment and applications to be addressed before they create further issues
Modern networks are comprised of countless components, applications, and equipment resources, any of which create issues when improperly maintained. Just because a system has been stable in the past does not mean it will remain viable and operational without proper maintenance and oversight. Proactive monitoring helps to ensure smaller issues are accurately identified and promptly addressed to minimize risk associated with larger problems.
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Proactive IT Support Provides Cost-Effective Solutions and Superior Results
Take a proactive approach to IT maintenance and services to ensure predictable expenses and lower overall costs. Lost revenue due to downtime, data loss or other significant IT issues can often be far greater than many businesses realize, and may easily exceed the relatively minor costs needed to implement a proactive IT support solution.
Instead of having an IT department that constantly gets complaints you can easily become an IT superhero by showing the insight to prevent issues from occurring in the first place. Having an IT partner such as CompuData by your side can always help bridge the gap between preventive and reactive IT support.
Download the Free Managed Services Selection Guide below⇓ to learn about how Managed IT Services can help you proactively avoid IT issues.