There’s no getting around the fact that server management is difficult for SMBs. While they might be a critical part of your operation’s infrastructure, servers are complex pieces of technology. If they are not appropriately managed, your company could waste time, energy, and resources. Today, we want to highlight the primary functions of server management and how you can get the most out of your existing resources.
The primary purpose of your server infrastructure is to host resources. As such, your servers will be under a significant amount of stress from the rest of your technological infrastructure. You should have a system to monitor CPU, memory, disk usage, and network traffic to ensure your systems can handle the load you place on them. If your business uses multiple servers, consider ways to balance the load amongst them so one machine is not too overburdened. If you find that your servers are constantly underperforming, then it’s perhaps time to scale accordingly. In such situations, you can consider cloud-based servers for more flexibility and cost-effectiveness.
As the central hub of your business’ data, the server also plays an important role in your security infrastructure. Your servers must be protected by the same level of security as the rest of your IT, such as firewalls, antivirus and antimalware, encryption, and monitoring. Powerful authentication tools also help you keep your infrastructure safe and secure, controlling access to the central nervous system of your network. Furthermore, your server is just like any other piece of hardware and software your business uses, and it must be kept up-to-date and protected with the latest patches and updates to shore up any potential vulnerabilities.
What would you do if your data infrastructure were to become unavailable, whether it was lost, corrupted, or stolen? In situations like this, it’s best to have robust data backup and disaster recovery solutions that take backups at regular intervals and test them to ensure you have a failsafe in case of an incident. You’ll want these backups to be stored in secure locations outside of your server infrastructure, like in a data center or the cloud, to ensure redundancy, and you should aim for minimal downtime and data loss if a recovery is needed.
If this all sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. A single server alone is a lot for an untrained business professional. This is why we recommend SMBs outsource this responsibility to trained technicians. You can do so today by calling First Column IT. To ensure your server infrastructure gets the necessary maintenance, contact us at (571) 470-5594.
