Tech
Support Now has developed a best practices methodology
that is based on experience and research. Following
these best practices and integrating them into your
day-to-day business operations will dramatically
increase the reliably of your network, provide the
proper level of protection for your business, and
improve the overall effectiveness, and efficiency
of your organization.
Backups
Backups
have three major purposes: To permit restoration
of individual files, permit wholesale restoration
of entire file system, permit off-site storage
of data for disaster recovery.
Every type of backup should be tested on a periodic
basis to make sure that data can be read from
it. It is a fact that sometimes backups are performed
that are, for one reason or another, unreadable.
The unfortunate part in all this is that many
times it is not realized until data has been lost
and must be restored from backup. The
reasons for this can range from changes in tape
drive head alignment, misconfigured backup software,
and operator error. No matter what the cause,
without periodic testing you cannot be sure that
you are actually generating backups from which
data can be restored at some later time.
Firewall
A
firewall is typically a hardware device that filters
the information coming through the Internet connection
into your private network. Without it your business
network is open to anyone at anytime to freely obtain
or compromise your private data. Hardware firewall's
are very secure and not very expensive to obtain.
Any business with a Internet connection must have
one.
Anti-Virus
Anti-Virus
protection is critical to protecting your organizations
servers and pc's. The down time and expense from
a virus can be detrimental to any business. Experts
estimate that the Mydoom worm infected approximately
a quarter-million computers in a single day in
January 2004. In March 1999, the Melissa virus
was so powerful that it forced Microsoft and a
number of other very large companies to completely
turn off their e-mail systems until the virus
could be contained. Do not play wait and see with
Anti-Virus solutions. It is better to maintain
protection on a budget than have to pay for removal,
recovery, downtime, and protection after the fact.
Anti-Spyware
and Adware
Spyware
and Adware is far more harmful than ever before,
placing business information, privacy, and perhaps
even your identity at risk. Spyware is also the
cause of lost productivity in most businesses today.
With a combination of a good Internet usage policy,
followed by Anti-Spyware/Adware software, and Internet
filtering you can eliminate about 98% of all spyware
and adware related issues.
Windows
Updates and Hot Fixes
Keeping
your pc's and servers up-to-date is crucial. There
are new vulnerabilities to your operating systems
discovered every day .Fixes for bugs, vulnerabilities,
and upgrades are available free of charge to keep
your pc's and servers as up-to-date as possible.
Microsoft offers a web site that provides updates
for Windows operating system software and Windows-based
hardware. On Windows 2000 and above you have the
option to turn on Automatic Updates. Windows Update
can deliver high priority updates to your computer
as they become available. You can decide when and
how updates are installed. We highly recommend this
is done for all Windows Operating Systems. Servers
require a special solution depending on your environment.
Disk
Fragmentation
Over
time we have discovered that disk fragmentation
causes crashes, slowdowns, and system failures.
A cause performance bottlenecks is fragmentation.
The disk drive is by far the slowest of the three
main components of your computer: CPU, memory and
disk. If the drive isn't defragmented the fastest
CPU in the world won't improve your system's performance,
because information from the disk simply can't be
delivered fast enough. We highly recommend that
a third party product such as Diskeeper be implemented
on you servers and critical pc's. You can configure
the software to run on a schedule and will it dramatically
improve and maintain the performance of your pc's
and servers.
UPS
(Uninterruptible Power Supply)
A
UPS generally protects a computer against several
different power problems: Voltage surges and spikes,
Voltage sags, Total power failure,and Frequency
differences.
There
are two common systems in use: Standby UPS and
Continuous UPS. A standby UPS runs the computer
off of the normal utility power until it detects
a problem. At that point, it turns on a power
inverter and runs the computer off of the UPS's
battery. Standby UPS systems are far more common
for small-business use because they tend to cost
about half as much as a continuous system. In
a continuous UPS, the computer is always running
off of battery power and the battery is continuously
being recharged. Continuous systems provide extremely
clean, stable power, so they tend to be used in
server rooms and mission critical applications.
Tech
Support Now recommends that every computer and
server in a business or home environment should
be on a UPS. Servers have the ability to use a
UPS to gently shutdown in the event of a power
outage which will aid in the prevention of loss
of data or damage to the hardware.
