Servers are the technological heart of any modern business. A company server provides a central storage point for their data and hosts their corporate applications. Servers are relied upon to establish remote connections into the corporate network, allowing users to work on the same projects from remote locations.
A small-business owner may see the desktop computer in front of each employee and rationalize that as long as it keeps running it puts money in their pocket. In the case of a desktop computer, they may be able to justify the down time of a single employee while they run to an office store or order a replacement computer online. With a server, the matter is much more critical.
A small-business owner may see the desktop computer in front of each employee and rationalize that as long as it keeps running it puts money in their pocket. In the case of a desktop computer, they may be able to justify the down time of a single employee while they run to an office store or order a replacement computer online. With a server, the matter is much more critical.
Servers are often “out of sight, out of mind,” but no other piece of office equipment is as mission-critical. A server performs many functions in any office. The server can house data, manage print functions or allow employees access to critical applications. Without these services, the business comes to a grinding halt.
Here are some key costs that can be associated with letting a server get old and possibly fail –
• Employee downtime
• Data corruption or loss of data
• Productivity loss due to poor performance or outdated technology
Employee downtime costs a business in many ways. The most obvious is the direct cost of paying a worker for their time while they sit idle. If a server goes down and the employee is unable to perform the function they are being paid to perform the loss is easier to see. However, the reality is far worse than just the lost labour cost. The impact the lost labour has on customer service is far greater. When a company fails to meet deadlines, there are real consequences that often include customers finding new providers. The thousands it will cost you to replace equipment is cheap by comparison.
Even worse than having employees sitting is the potential for lost data. Many businesses never reopen after a catastrophic data loss. A business owner who assumes that it is ok to run this type of risk, even if they have a backup, is fooling themselves. The fact is most small businesses don’t have a dedicated IT staff, and they wind up trusting a secretary or other employee to maintain backups. Do you really want to leave the fate of your business up to that person?
As time marches on, databases grow, hard drives fill up and computers slow down. Think about all the stuff that gets dumped on your corporate server. Where your desktop computer probably has a few types of information that get stored to it, the server in the back gets everything stored on it from every department. If the server in question is an application server with a database performance degradation becomes even more apparent.
Finally, we run into a topic many business owners want to ignore altogether, new technology. New operating systems and new applications seem to be coming to market at ever faster rates. Technologies such as tablet computers or employees wanting to work from home or on the road are becoming today's new normal. When a business fails to invest in updating their server, they are leaving these opportunities on the table.
In many cases business owners are just trying to save a buck. In reality, they wind up stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.
Featured images:
License: Creative Commons image source
The article was supplied by Josh Hervall, a technology and IT enthusiast and keen blogger. He writes for www.consosco.com; experts in IT Solutions.
