The Savvy CIO

The business world is waking up this month. Is your IT infrastructure ready to support the incoming upswing? How can you prepare while still being cautious about expenses?

We’ve collected our posts about how to perform your own IT assessment into a single, downloadable document. We cover the key issues involved in twelve types of critical technology, including common mistakes, best practices, and our recommendations from years in the IT trenches. The technology considered includes:

1. Malware and Anti-Virus
2. Firewalls
3. Content Filtering
4. Physical Network
5. Internet Connection
6. Email & Collaboration
7. Wireless Network
8. Data Backups
9. Data Repositories (including servers)
10. PCs
11. Printers
12. Remote Access

Download it. Copy it. Share it with a colleague or your IT guy.

We’re committed to seeing small businesses reap the real benefits of IT, instead of seeing IT as a cost center or necessary evil.

Click to download the guide here: Highland Solutions IT Assessment Guide.

This is part 12 of a series on IT Self-Assessment for small businesses. We’re providing information and guidelines for a simple IT check, giving you the ability to gain free insights into how your technology can serve your  business better. Each post covers a critical area of technology.

Remote Access

Function & Value

Remote access enables users to access programs and files stored on a PC or server in your office when they are not physically in the office. Remote access can allow for a flexible work schedule, cover mistakes when a file or task is forgotten, and help you accomplish an emergency weekend task without an emergency weekend commute.

There are two common ways to provide remote access: VPN (virtual private network) and Remote Desktop. A VPN uses a piece of software on an external PC to connect with a VPN concentrator (often a firewall) inside the office. Remote Desktop runs on an external PC and connects with appropriate credentials to a PC inside the office.

External access is required for most businesses, but it can pose significant risks to your network. Here are the most common problems and how to avoid them: read more »

This is part 11 of a series on IT Self-Assessment for small businesses. We’re providing information and guidelines for a simple IT check, giving you the ability to gain free insights into how your technology can serve your  business better. Each post covers a critical area of technology.

Infrastructure: Printers

Print easily and as cheaply as possible. That’s the bottom line with printers. Here are the three most common mistakes businesses make with printers, and how to fix them.

Common Problems

(1) Sharing printers off of PCs. When a printer is connected directly to a PC and then shared through the PC, it slows down printing and can affect the shared PCs performance. Anytime the PC is turned off, the printer is unavailable.

(2) Sharing printers off of a server. This creates similar problems and is unnecessary. Current printers have the processing power built in to handle virtually any print job you can send their way. There are some situations where sharing off of a print server is advantageous (see below).

(3) Using inkjet printers. To some extent, all printers are “cheap” and all ink is “expensive”, but inkjet printers are the worst of the lot. The low purchase price of the printer disguises the fact that over time inkjets are more expensive than laser printers. Similarly, printing black and white documents to a color printer wastes more expensive ink consumables.

read more »

This is part 10 of a series on IT Self-Assessment for small businesses. We’re providing information and guidelines for a simple IT check, giving you the ability to gain free insights into how your technology can serve your  business better. Each post covers a critical area of technology.

Infrastructure: PCs

Function & Value

The personal computer is everywhere. For most businesses, it is as essential as a phone and a business card. Maybe more so. PCs enable, connect, and extend. PCs serve as a platform for nearly everything a knowledge worker does.

These days, PCs are cheap. But maintaining them is not. Neither is a lost day of work when one breaks. Here are the most common problems that lead to expensive maintenance and lost work, and how to ensure your PCs are reliable.

read more »

This is part 9 of a series on IT Self-Assessment for small businesses. We’re providing information and guidelines for a simple IT check, giving you the ability to gain free insights into how your technology can serve your  business better. Each post covers a critical area of technology.

Data Protection & Recovery: Data Repositories

Function & Value

Data repositories keep your critical business information centralized and secure. For most small businesses, the sole or primary repository is a file server. Other common data repositories are hosted file management systems, industry specific applications, and customer relationship management databases.

A centralized server makes files accessible and organized, and protects your business from loss due to employee turnover or computer failure.

A server is often one of the first IT purchases for a new business, but many are underutilized, insecure or improperly configured. This leads to continued exposure to risk, both internal and external. Here are the most common problems small businesses encounter with a file server and how to avoid them.

read more »

This is part 8 of a series on IT Self-Assessment for small businesses. We’re providing information and guidelines for a simple IT check, giving you the ability to gain free insights into how your technology can serve your  business better. Each post covers a critical area of technology.

Data Protection & Recovery: Backups

Function & Value

Backups create copies of critical business information. Computer hard drives fail, laptops are stolen, buildings catch on fire, data is accidentally (or intentionally deleted). Backups ensure these events don’t permanently destroy data.

Backups are not very interesting, and tend to be neglected. They’re hard to care about when nothing has gone wrong for years at a time. But in times of unexpected disaster, an accessible backup can save days, weeks or years of work. A backup can even determine if a business survives or closes its doors.

Here are six common backup mistakes that put your business at risk.

read more »

This is part 7 of a series on IT Self-Assessment for small businesses. We’re providing information and guidelines for a simple IT check, giving you the ability to gain free insights into how your technology can serve your  business better. Each post covers a critical area of technology.

Communications: Wireless Network

Function & Value

A wireless network allows wireless enabled devices like laptops and PDAs to easily gain access to the Internet or your local network without the expense or tangle of Ethernet cables.

Why do you need a wireless network? Wireless is more flexible and less expensive than a wired network and can be ideal for small or mobile offices as a primary network. Wireless also makes your office hospitable to guests needing access.

Why don’t you need a wireless network? Unlike wired networks, you cannot control how far a wireless network extends, so your network can be accessible from the parking lot or the office next door. Wireless is also much more difficult to secure than a wired network, and poses unique security challenges.

Wireless isn’t right for all businesses. If you already have a wired network, don’t add a wireless network unless there is real need.

If you do have or require a wireless network, pay attention to the following common problems and best practices. A compromise of your wireless network can be crippling to your business.

read more »

This is part 6 of a series on IT Self-Assessment for small businesses. We’re providing information and guidelines for a simple IT check, giving you the ability to gain free insights into how your technology can serve your  business better. Each post covers a critical area of technology.

Communications: Email & Collaboration

Function & Value

Email has become the central form of communication for business. Email is critical to your company in marketing, sales, customer service, operations and more.

A host of related functions have grown up around email: calendars, contact lists, task lists, instant messaging, etc. Collaboration technology takes these functions and connects them: you see not only your own calendar, but also your team members’. Contact lists, project tasks and more now become shared information. The effects on productivity are incredible.

Common Problems

(1) Lack of collaboration. Email is provided (often for free) by a website host, and is accessed through a basic webmail program or Outlook. This creates two major issues:

• Each employee’s information is on an “island”, with no ability to share schedules, contact information, or to-do lists. This is a massive time sink with significant cost to your business.
• All email and related information is stored on individual PCs. When a hard drive fails, all of that information is lost. This is a massive business risk with significant potential cost to your business.

Take an informal survey. Find out how much time staff is spending each week managing contacts and calendars, or making phone calls and emails to set up meetings. Multiply that out into annual salary to see what lack of collaboration is costing your business. (And that’s not even considering lost revenue from all that wasted time!)

(2) Overly complex and costly tools. The collaboration tools with the most brand recognition (Microsoft Exchange, Novell Groupwise, Lotus Notes) were made for very large corporations. They work in economies of scale. 1,000 users utilizing a $10,000 investment makes a lot of sense. 25 users utilizing a $10,000 investment does not. These tools are too costly and complex to maintain for smaller businesses.

read more »

This is part 5 of a series on IT Self-Assessment for small businesses. We’re providing information and guidelines for a simple IT check, giving you the ability to gain free insights into how your technology can serve your  business better. Each post covers a critical area of technology.

Communications: Internet Connection

Function & Value

Your Internet connection…connects you to the Internet. Depending on your business, this is either a nice benefit or life and death. How critical web access is to your business will determine how much attention and budget you give to Internet connectivity.

Common Problems

(1) Using an underpowered connection. DSL connections are nearly always over-rated. This means if your provider claims the connection is-for example-1.5 Mbps (megabytes per second) down and .2 Mbps up, the speed you actually experience will be less. We suspect published DSL speeds can only be experienced under better-than-ideal conditions.

(2) Relying on a single connection for an Internet-dependent business. If online access is necessary for your business or your staff to function, a single connection will cause downtime. The cost of downtime (in productivity, customer relations and recovery) will probably cost much more than a backup connection. read more »

This is part 4 of a series on IT Self-Assessment for small businesses. We’re providing information and guidelines for a simple IT check, giving you the ability to gain free insights into how your technology can serve your  business better. Each post covers a critical area of technology.

Communications: Physical Network

Function & Value

A physical network is the circulatory system of your technology infrastructure. Switches and Ethernet cables help information circulate between users, servers, databases, and applications. Poorly configured switches and cables can cause your network to run slowly or lose connections.

The physical network is often overlooked in IT evaluations, in favor of “cooler” technology than cables, switches and wall jacks. But if the physical network isn’t rock solid, you’ll see recurring problems over and over again, as wall jacks fail to work, connections are dropped and speed suffers. Poor configuration can also lead to a network looping back on itself, bringing your entire infrastructure to a screeching halt.

How can you be sure your business isn’t at risk?

read more »