IT Infrastructure Archives

In the digital age, it’s crucial for your business to have a robust IT infrastructure if you want to achieve long-term success and sustainability.

An IT infrastructure, however, is a complex combination of services and components. Accordingly, building and maintaining one is far from straightforward. But if you want to support your day-to-day operations and build for future growth, it’s essential you prioritize your IT infrastructure. To help you get started, or evaluate your existing system, we’re going to take a closer look and how you can build and maintain it.

What are the Key Components?

A well-designed IT infrastructure will ensure your daily operations run smoothly, but what are the components supporting this success? The core elements comprising an IT infrastructure include:

Hardware: central to any IT system is the hardware, without which you wouldn’t have any IT capabilities. This hardware typically includes major resources such as servers for managing network activity, storage solutions for data management and backup, as well as networking equipment to support connectivity and security e.g. routers and firewalls.
Software: the backbone of your hardware will be software, which your team can use to process, store, and analyze data. This software can include operating systems such as Windows and Linux, or business applications which support core functions e.g. using Microsoft Excel to store data.
Network Infrastructure: depending on the size of your business, you may rely on Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN). Generally, a smaller business will only need to work with a LAN, but larger businesses may work with several LANs connected to a main WAN. Both of these networks ensure there is a seamless data flow across your network.

Building and Maintaining an IT Infrastructure

Before you start operating across an IT infrastructure, you need to first build one and then establish a maintenance schedule. It’s an important process and one which requires great planning. So, to do this successfully, make sure you cover the following:

Carry Out a Needs Assessment: before investing in an IT infrastructure, perform a thorough assessment of your business needs. This involves understanding current and future requirements, identifying gaps, and setting clear objectives. It’s important to involve multiple stakeholders from your business in this activity, as well as working with IT experts to determine what’s viable.
Scalability: It’s difficult to predict future growth, but designing your IT infrastructure to be scalable is vital. This means selecting hardware and software that can grow with your business, allowing for easy upgrades and expansions when your business activity demands it.
Regular Maintenance: you should regularly update software and hardware to ensure optimal performance and security. Implement a maintenance schedule and keep up with the latest patches and upgrades. Remember, failing to implement security patches promptly can have catastrophic results for your IT security.
Monitor Performance: once your IT infrastructure is up and running, it’s important to monitor its performance. It’s very easy for small issues to escalate into major IT issues, so being proactive can help identify issues before they become critical.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

The Importance of Quick IT Support Response Times

IT contact numbers, IT infrastructure, IT Support, minimize IT issues, OphtekIT contact numbers, IT Infrastructure, it support, minimize IT issues, OphtekOphtek, LLC

Apr 2024

Every second counts when it comes to IT support, as unresolved issues can quickly become costly. And speed is something which Ophtek prides itself on.

The digital business landscape of the 21^st century is wide-reaching and informs countless business decisions throughout the day. From emails through to data storage and on to cybersecurity defenses, your IT infrastructure is crucial. Therefore, when there’s an issue with your IT systems, you need these to be resolved quickly, otherwise the financial impact – especially with cybercrime – can be significant.

The Impact of Downtime

Anything which creates an issue for your operational processes is going to have a financial impact. Say, for example, your data storage solutions fail, this is going to restrict the amount of data you have available. This could easily impact your operations by disrupting the way in which you retrieve customer data. Deliveries, which require customer details such as delivery addresses, could be put on hold. This scenario would instantly compromise your ability to invoice, with customers unlikely to pay for goods not received on time.

Likewise, if your email server were to become compromised by threat actors, you risk not only exposing your customers’ data, but also losing a major communication channel. This is a double-edged threat and, again, represents a major financial risk. Aside from your customers taking legal action against you for data violations, there’s the fact you could miss key communications from your customers and suppliers.

Every minute of downtime has the potential to push your business backwards, and it’s vital you can counter this effectively.

Minimize The Impact with a Speedy Response

It’s clear that IT is important for organizations to conduct their day-to-day operations, and any disruption to this will have major ramifications. The best way to minimize this is by ensuring you can launch a quick response. This will reduce your downtime and allow your organization to get its business operations back on track. Furthermore, it will minimize any financial risk e.g. allow you to resume order processing and any billing processes. And in today’s competitive business landscape, this is essential.

The best way to plan and execute quick IT support response claims is by partnering yourself with an established IT support provider, such as Ophtek. With a long track record of providing speedy and professional support, we can ensure that any IT downtime is kept to a minimum. Nonetheless, you can still put measures in place to help minimize your IT issues and facilitate our response:

Regular training: IT issues need to be reported, but you need to make sure that your team members know when to identify issues which require an IT professional. A malware threat, for example, always needs reporting, but something minor such as selecting a default printer in Word can probably be dealt with in-house.
Provide contact numbers: the members of your organization need to know who to contact in the case of an IT emergency, so these contact details need to be made available to every member of staff. A simple way of achieving this is by creating a contact in your phone systems, but it’s also a good idea to display a contact number on every user’s desktop.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

How to Future Proof Your IT Infrastructure in 2023

Cloud, future, new technology, Ophtek, proof your IT infrastructure, security, virtualizationcloud, future, IT Infrastructure, new tech, Ophtek, proof, security, virtualizationOphtek, LLC

Sep 2023

Technology advances at a rapid pace, and this means you need to build scalability into your IT infrastructure to maintain future productivity.

Businesses need to future proof their IT infrastructure to ensure long-term success and sustainability. After all, technology is constantly evolving, and failing to adapt can result in outdated systems which hinder growth, productivity, and competitiveness. But if you adopt a culture of future proofing, you can minimize this risk by using new technology to enhance scalability and maximize your productivity. Implementing scalability, however, is easier said than done. And that’s why we’ve decided to give you a head start with some suggestions.

The Best Future Proofing Methods for Success

If you want to make sure that your IT infrastructure remains relevant and keeps one eye on the future, make sure you adopt these best practices for future proofing:

Use the cloud: one of the simplest ways to future proof your IT operations is by adopting cloud-based solutions. With a wide range of providers and plans available, you can use cloud-based platforms to take care of your storage, software, and infrastructure. Best of all, these services can easily be upgraded to cope with future demand, this makes cloud computing the epitome of scalability and reduces the risk of your in-house hardware becoming obsolete.

Invest for the future: while it may make financial sense, in the short term, investing in low quality IT hardware will only ever provide a short term solution. You see, given how fast technology evolves, if you buy IT equipment at the cheaper end of the market, its performance levels will soon be superseded by newer technology. Therefore, while remaining financially sensible, make sure you invest in the best technology you can afford to increase its lifespan and suitability for your needs.
Virtualization: this creates virtual versions of resources and allows your business to optimize your equipment and reduce costs. Virtualization optimizes your resources by consolidating multiple virtual machines onto a single server, this approach will reduce costs and enhance efficiency. It also helps to future proof your IT infrastructure as it allows you to scale resources up or down quickly based on demand. So, not only is your system flexible and scalable, but it also provides a strong foundation for your IT infrastructure going forwards.
Watch technology: if you want to future proof your businesses IT operations, then it’s crucial that you keep an eye on what’s happening in the world of technology. This will ensure that you are aware of innovative opportunities for growth within your business. More importantly, it will give you time to plan and implement these innovations early on compared to your competitors. This will give you not only a competitive edge, but it will also allow you to anticipate changes in customer behavior.
Strengthen your security: cyber criminals are constantly updating their methods of attack, so you need to keep pace with them to secure your IT infrastructure. Accordingly, always make sure that your antivirus software is up to date and that your employees are educated about upcoming, as well as contemporary, threats. These simple steps will help facilitate the future security of your IT systems.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

5 Signs That You Need to Upgrade Your IT Infrastructure

cyber attacks, IT Infrrastructure, Legacy Software, Old PCs, Ophtek, Storage Space, System SpeedsCyber Attacks, IT Infrastructure, legacy software, old PCs, Ophtek, storage space, system speedOphtek, LLC

Sep 2021

The business world is constantly evolving and it’s crucial that your IT infrastructure supports this. However, it’s important that you know when to upgrade.

A good IT infrastructure is the backbone of any successful organization in modern business. But, much like the way in which the business landscape quickly changes, the technology behind these infrastructures can soon be superseded. This leaves you at risk of losing out on gains in productivity. Gains that your competitors are sure to take advantage of. IT equipment, however, is expensive and there’s little reason for upgrading for the sake of upgrading. You need to be able to recognize the warning signs that you IT infrastructure needs upgrading.

What are the 5 Signs?

Regularly reviewing the capabilities and condition of your IT infrastructure should be considered a vital business task. Any potential issues need to be addressed, but what should you be looking for? Well, you should start by keeping an eye out for the following:

A Reliance on Legacy Software: The familiarity of legacy software ensures that staff are comfortable using it. But it’s a ‘negative’ positive to focus on. Not only is legacy software prone to cyber-attacks, it’s also likely to be less productive than modern software. Therefore, if you are still using software that has had its support discontinued then it’s time to upgrade. Moving to modern software requires, in the short term, a period of adjustment, but the long-term gains in security and productivity mean it’s more effective.

Slow System Speeds: Nothing is more frustrating in the world of IT than slow system speeds. PC users want to be able to transfer between apps seamlessly and execute tasks quickly. Accordingly, if you find that your IT systems are consistently running slower then this should be treated as a major warning sign. Either the demands of your network can no longer be met or your systems are simply outdated. Whatever the reason, upgrading your IT infrastructure can quickly remedy the fault.

Regular Cyber-Attacks: If you find that your IT systems are regularly being breached by hackers then there’s a good chance it’s down to your IT infrastructure. Often this can be down to a lack of suitable protection. Evaluating your defenses should be a regular task to protect your systems. By regularly monitoring your defenses you should be able to spot vulnerabilities before hackers do.

Lack of Storage Space: The amount of data that businesses process on a daily basis continues to increase at a rapid pace. And this can put a strain on your storage capabilities. An IT system which lacks adequate storage can soon experience problems such as a drop in performance and regular system crashes. Thankfully, storage space is regularly dropping in price. Therefore, once your storage space reaches a certain threshold – such as 80% full – you should look to increase it as quickly as possible.

Working with Old PCs: As we’ve already covered, technology changes quickly. And this means that your workstations can soon become outdated. PCs and laptops may not be low-cost items, but eliminating the faults most often associated with them – lack of speed, poor compatibility and limited features – is undeniably essential.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

Tag Archives: IT Infrastructure