How to be Prepared When Your Technology Inevitably Fails

It's likely that you’ve had to deal with the following scenario: You're efficiently working when you try to open an application only to be rebuked by an error message on the screen that tells you that there is some type of critical error. You close that out hoping that it was a one-time exception, but it appears up again. You think to yourself, “Why does this always happen?”

The truth, this happens all the time.

No matter how good of an investment your organization's technology is, no matter how much money you make as a result of that technology, no matter how much you rely on that technology… that technology will fail. Below we look at common technology issues and how imperative it is to have a backup plan with the flaky nature of this technology.

Broken Technology
If yours is like the average business, you have all kinds of technology that you utilize to accomplish things. This technology, however, has a tendency to malfunction regularly if you don’t have a strategy in place to proactively monitor and maintain it. This happens throughout a business. Some of the most widespread problems a company may experience with their IT include:

• Software problems: Software can be a huge frustration for users and IT administrators. Most pieces of software that are released have their bugs, which should probably be expected. However, the problem is that users expect that all software, no matter who has developed it, to work flawlessly every time they use it. This expectation is optimistic at best since most software titles will have some type of erroneous error. The issue becomes when that software error negatively affects one of your staff’s productivity and costs you extra in maintenance. Also, many software problems (and computer performance issues) have to do with the existence of malware on your system or network.
• Hardware problems: Sometimes hardware problems can result in software problems, but most of the time if you have a problem with a piece of hardware, whether it be a workstation, a monitor, a router, a switch, or even a server, if that piece of hardware fails, it will almost certainly lead to some type of downtime; and, will be accompanied with repair or replacement costs shortly thereafter.
• Peripheral problems: Hardware that isn’t essential to organizational computing effectiveness is usually considered peripheral. This includes easily replaceable hardware like a keyboard and/or mouse, and hardware that performs a specific special function such as a scanner, a printer, a copier, etc. Depending on what the malfunctioning peripheral is, fixing it could cost you next to nothing or much more than you anticipated.

No matter what part of your IT infrastructure fails, replacing it is likely going to have to become a priority for you. If you get into a situation where some of the more expensive parts of your IT infrastructure begin to fail at once, or you have to deal with a companywide disaster, you may be facing a significant problem.

What Are Your Options?
Fortunately, you do have an option that will work to mitigate both unnecessary costs and the stress over failing technology: managed IT services.

The IT experts at Macro Systems can provide you with comprehensive monitoring which keeps a watchful eye over all of your IT to ensure that it is working as intended. If a machine or other device on your IT infrastructure is on its last legs, the powerful automated monitoring software will notify one of our professional technicians who then can be proactive about replacing the malfunctioning hardware, software, or peripheral. This allows your organization to significantly reduce downtime, as well as the usually expensive costs of it.

Another benefit you will see by partnering with Macro Systems is that we prioritize protecting your data from system loss. Our strong backup and disaster recovery platform utilizes industry best practices to protect your digital assets from loss by continuously backing your data up both onsite and in the cloud. Our BDR system provides powerful data redundancy and delivers peace of mind by ensuring that if something terrible does happen, your data is safe.

If you would like more information about Macro System’s services that are designed to keep your business running as intended, call us today at 703-359-9211.