Just about every company out there has some sort of computer system. Whether it's a single PC running Quickbooks, a peer-to-peer system in a small office or a full-fledged domain-controlled network in a large office, PC's are everywhere. A lot of times it is obvious as to what kind of PC or network you should have. The problems arise when a company starts with one kind of network or PC because that's all they can afford. Later, when they grow larger, the choices they made while small can cause problems, costing significant amounts of money to fix.
One of the biggest pitfalls small companies fall into is purchasing the wrong operating system for their business computers. Most PC's that are purchased at box stores or over the internet have "Home" edition operating systems on them. For single-use or Peer-to-peer, this is fine. Once you decide to make the leap to a real corporate network, the operating system needs to be "Business" or "Ultimate". Home operating systems cannot connect to a corporate domain. If you have "Home" computers on your network, they can't reap the benefits of logging into the domain and money has to be spent upgrading the OS to a business class. Take the first step at the beginning and purchase business-class operating systems.
On a side not, but very closely related to this first point, is Macintosh computers. I know a lot of people love them and they are absolutely fantastic for certain functions (video, graphics, etc.), but they are not the best computers to have on a corporate network, and most IT people loath trying to get MAC's working smoothly on a Windows network.
The second problem I see a lot is the lack of, or disinterest in backups. In small companies there is usually no central server repository to hold all the corporate information and to back it up effectively. So information is kept on each PC in an environment ripe for disaster when a hard drive fails. Most hard drives spin at 7200 rpm, which means, like any other moving part, they are prone to failure. I can't tell you how many times small companies have come to me asking if I could get the data off a dead drive. For $500 it's easy to set up a RAIDED NAS storage device on the network and have each PC backup automatically to it. The peace of mind (and safety of data) is well worth it.
I could go easily list another dozen things that small companies should watch out for, but I'm only going to touch on one more that is both extremely dangerous and very easy to ignore. That issue is software licensing. In this day and age it is imperative that every company be legal with regards to its software. It's so easy to download the free version of AVG and just say "Yes" when asked if it's for home use. Or maybe you discarded a PC and "moved" your office application to a new one thinking that you paid for it, you should be able to run it on any PC you want. The rules of software licensing can be daunting. Whether you have OEM (Original Equipment Manufacture) licenses or open licenses can dictate whether a piece of software can be moved from one machine to another. "Free" software that can be used in a home environment generally cannot be used for free in a business environment. Most people love to save money and hate forking over loads of cash for software, but the software police are out there, and if you ever get audited you will end up paying WAY more for the fines than you ever would have for the software itself.
Call up a trusted computer consultant. Ask them to build a roadmap for you to use as your company grows. The map may change a little over time, as technology grows, but there are some basic pieces you should always be working on:
Internet Connectivity (basic broadband, business class broadband, T-1)
Firewalls (basic linksys-type router, Cisco, Watchguard)
Routers
Internal Networking hardware (Switches, routers, CAT-5 wiring)
Wireless access (security protocols, areas of access, roaming capabilities)
PC and Laptop requirements
Servers (file, mail, FTP, web, VPN)
Backups (tape, remote, SAN, NAS)
Domain Controllers (Microsoft, Foundations)
Software requirements
Security (network, roaming user, password)
To do your job well, your computers need to be working for you. Starting on the right foot from the beginning can go a long way towards that goal. Give me or any other trusted IT person a call to help get you on the right path.
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Posted by: ram | October 26, 2009 at 07:57 AM
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Posted by: external hard drive | October 24, 2009 at 01:57 AM