While the private sector can more freely embark on an IT initiative, government IT is accountable to its citizens. As a consequence, it has little control over the budget, and it needs to be transparent in everything from purchasing decisions to data management. The situation hands government IT unique challenges in terms of budget, accountability, expertise, manpower, and timetables, among others.
For business owners and the workforce, IT is generally something they prefer not to think about unless something goes wrong. While the ideal scenario is to ensure that they can put all their concentration into running the business, a lack of IT awareness can lead to telltale signs that something is wrong. Here are six warning signs that indicate it’s time to update your business IT solutions.
Many companies are starting to look into a managed IT services model in order to handle their technology staff needs. Some are still on the fence and have questions about outsourcing their IT work versus internal IT hiring as a solution. Below are some of the more frequently asked questions that businesses have about using an outsourced IT staff.
I recently completed a small project for a Boston area firm which involved installing Microsoft Windows updates on all of my client’s domain controllers. They had not been installed in 3-5 years on any of these important servers! I don’t think it was truly neglect, I think it was just more of “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it” kind of approach. The reason they finally decided to go ahead with the updates was because of WMI performance issues and they thought that having me install the long list of updates (and hotfixes) would solve their problems.
Given the world we now live in, the need for reliable off-site backup of mission-critical business information is indisputable for all businesses. Small to medium-sized businesses and enterprises that manage a lot of data require scalable, secure, and cost-effective systems in order to manage, back up, and recover data from a network of computers with minimal user intervention. The challenge of finding the right managed backup services provider comes in understanding what your business should be considering in order to make the right choice.
As an entrepreneur, you are always on the lookout for ways to do things that can help streamline your business and quickly expand your infrastructure in order to meet your growth needs. Many businesses turn to a network solutions provider in order to assist them in this area, because this type of partner can provide guidance and expertise when it comes to virtualization and storage solutions—two technologies that have the potential to save a business a great deal of money if done right.
With Exchange 2010 now in extended support, many companies are in are in the fork in the road in determining their Office 365 trajectory. Common considerations are shown in the diagram above.
Budget constraints, disparate or aging technology, integration with legacy systems, risk mitigation, and increased productivity expectations are just some of the big issues that today’s CIOs must grapple with. Fortunately, there are a significant number of network and infrastructure solutions that can help them address a majority of these challenges and even impact all of them to a significant degree. Here are just three of them that they may be aware of, but should be viewed in a different light to enable the support they need to take action.
Rutter Networking is excited to once again participate as a sponsor at the Massachusetts Digital Government Summit in Boston, Massachusetts. We look forward to sharing best practices and connecting with government customers and colleagues from around the Commonwealth.
In 2013, the US Government spent more than 500 billion dollars in outsourcing contracts. State and local government entities have also embraced outsourcing, especially when it comes to information technology services, because no matter the size of the organization, they are able to see the benefits almost immediately.
