Why is Proactive IT Support best

Why is Proactive IT Support best

Proactive IT Support

Back in ye olde days of IT (about 15 years ago) IT support was almost completely re-active. You had to wait until something went wrong, and then go and fix it.

Gradually though, tools and software applications have been developed to help IT professionals monitor and manage all aspects of IT infrastructures to ‘keep an eye’ on things and allow for a proactive approach.

It’s stating the bloomin’ obvious to say: it’s better to proactively fix a problem before it goes wrong than to wait until it goes wrong, and then address it reactively.

Here at Synium IT we monitor all of our clients PCs, laptops and servers with the following checks on a 24/7 basis. (We also monitor their internet connection to ensure any downtime is kept to an absolute minimum*)

What do Synium monitor as part of their 247 proactive checks ?

  • Failed Login Checks – detects if a server has rejected an attempted login.  This could be an indication of potential hacking activity – and is always something we investigate if there has been an alarming amount of these attempts.
  • Disk space check – alerts us if disk space is low. If disks run out of space this can make a PC or server inoperable – and can sometimes be a sign of something untoward.
  • Performance checks – we are alerted if a device’s CPU, RAM or Disks are overloaded – this allows us to see if a PC is struggling with the workload it is being used for.
  • Windows services Checks to ensure essential system services are running 24×7, eg :
    Antivirus services
    Essential network services
    Printer services
    Email services
    Database services
    Essential applications
  • Backup checks – alerts us if a backup job has failed, and reassures us the backups are successful
  • Physical disk health check – can help detect if PC disks are likely to fail or are damaged so you can replace the disk (or at least backup the data) before the disk fails.
  • Antivirus update check – checks if a PC or server’s antivirus software is up to date (to help detect latest threats) and keeps you protected
  • Patch Status Scan – lets us know if relevant security patches are missing
  • Ping check – actively monitors a critical device to make sure it is still connected and online

All these checks are reported to our central dashboard which is visible to all of our proactive IT support team. Any failures of checks are sent to our team via email notifications – meaning we are aware of problems often before they have chance to impact the end user – thus allowing us to address issues as quickly as possible.

With these check taking place automatically 24/7 – and with the notifications instantly informing your support team means that many issues’ that could affect you and your staff’s effectiveness are avoided. This allows staff to focus on the role they should be doing rather than being interrupted by problems.

This said, proactive checks can only go so far – there will always be ‘things’ that cannot be monitored – and as such there will always be the need for an IT Helpdesk service.

It is equally important that your staff can log any issues, incidents, requests as  Helpdesk tickets as efficiently as possible. Then these ‘tickets’ need to be responded t in an efficient and expert way.  You need to know that the IT helpdesk team will prioritise accordingly, and provide a timely resolution.

Any tickets received by our Helpdesk (via our Website form – via email – via the portal – or via phone) are immediately seen by our team, and assigned and prioritised accordingly. If need be, we have the means to securely connect to your computer to provide remote support – which significantly increases the response time, ensuring IT issues don’t affect the efficiencies of your business.

Click here to learn more about our IT Support services.

Simon Tonks
simon@synium.co.uk

Owner and MD of Synium who loves his job, his life and the wondrous outdoors - especially when on a golf course, or a bike of any kind (but preferably on a mountain bike going downhill fast).Please get in touch if there is anything IT related I can help you with (or if you want to talk golf or bikes :-)