While many business leaders and information technology professionals have discovered that outsourcing infrastructure services to a specialized service provider can be a wise decision, others are wary of completely outsourcing the management of their core technologies to a third party. In most cases, “outsourcing” does not imply this.
In today’s business world, any disruption in IT infrastructure can be extremely damaging. That is why cutting-edge technology must be deployed and maintained by people with deep expertise and up-to-date knowledge in a variety of areas. This is where providers of information technology infrastructure services can add value.
When looking for information technology services, it is important to make sure that the services you pay for meet your specific requirements. Rather than purchasing a pre-packaged solution, you will want a technology partner who will tailor your service agreement to your needs, not the other way around. This level of adaptability enables you to save time and money by outsourcing only the services you require, ensuring that your IT infrastructure is optimized to meet your business objectives.
Here are a few ways a managed service provider can help you maintain your IT infrastructure.
- Outsourcing
IT infrastructure management encompasses a wide range of activities, from device installation and maintenance to system monitoring and security. Assume your company lacks the human resources and technical expertise required to maintain a competent IT department. In that case, it may be a better idea to outsource your IT infrastructure management to a Dallas-managed IT services provider like Accudata or another managed services provider.
Because professional service providers have the necessary technical skills and experience to maintain a smooth-running IT infrastructure, outsourcing ensures that your company’s IT needs are met with little to no margin for error.
- Enable Cloud
Have you considered moving to a public or private cloud? You must be able to handle flexible consumption models, changing customer needs, and cloud-based application development as you migrate to a cloud infrastructure. To maximize productivity, your developers require a platform that allows them to use existing operating systems and languages while also providing access to the most recent open-source tools.
Look for cloud-enabled servers that are designed to meet these requirements and provide operating system and language flexibility. To facilitate collaboration and agile development, it’s a good idea to specify something that provides an open, secure hybrid cloud.
- Upgrade to cutting-edge telecom equipment.
Again, you must find the sweet spot—ensuring that you have exactly the telecom infrastructure required to remain competitive and leverage your team’s efforts. Most likely, you will not require every telecom innovation the moment it is released. However, there will come a point when the cost of missed opportunities or employee frustration outweighs the cost of an upgrade.
Offering telecom construction and maintenance as a service necessitates in-depth knowledge of the technology, various regulatory environments, and the plethora of telecom vendors. To that final point: You’ll want to be able to work with a variety of vendors rather than being forced to use only one because your service provider is contractually obligated to do so.
- Automation
Automation not only saves time and effort; it also ensures that your IT infrastructure runs smoothly and efficiently. Automation reduces human error, eliminating the possibility of a mistake causing a system malfunction.
For example, if your company uses a third-party email server, using automated software backups will save you the time and effort that manual email data restoration procedures may entail. Your company won’t have to worry about data loss with automated backups, allowing you to focus on day-to-day operations.
- Auditing
Auditing is something you should not be afraid of in the wonderful world of IT. In the context of business, the audit is frequently associated with taxes and the threat of fines. However, when it comes to IT auditing, the primary role of this task is to identify security vulnerabilities as well as problem areas of efficiency and compliance. In short, an IT audit is a great way to ensure that your IT infrastructure is functioning properly and to offer potential solutions for further optimization.
A thorough IT infrastructure audit will examine all of your hardware devices and network structure to ensure that your equipment is adequate for their assigned tasks (for example, your server device isn’t sluggish and overheating as a result of being underpowered). They will look for ways to improve the performance of your hardware or network devices.
The sole ‘drawback’ to this process is that it necessitates specialized knowledge or experience that many business owners are unlikely to possess. This means you’d have to hire an IT service provider to handle the process. On the plus side, you only really need an audit performed once a year or every two years.
- Strengthen Wireless IT Infrastructure
When setting up a wireless network, it is critical to review and analyze your locations to learn about radiofrequency performance, potential interference, and other potential barriers to peak wireless performance. The significance of determining proper wireless antenna and access point placement cannot be overstated. Surprisingly, and unfortunately, far too many wireless network deployments do not give their wireless reviews enough attention.
That is one of the more straightforward wireless problems to solve. Wireless technology, like everything else, is evolving at a breakneck pace. Some companies claim to provide a “set it and forget it” solution. Do not fall for that sales pitch if you want to keep your business infrastructure running smoothly.
While the terms IT infrastructure may not mean much to you right now, they should be something you pay close attention to in almost every aspect of your business. Making sure that people who pay for products on your site can do so without having their personal information stolen, or that you have backup storage to ensure that files can be kept safe. Improving your IT infrastructure is a necessary part of growing your business.
