IT professionals recognize that they should follow industry best practices. These strategies and techniques are proven to optimize availability and security while reducing costs and increasing IT productivity. Research shows that businesses of all sizes stand to gain by following IT best practices.
However, overstretched IT teams sometimes lack the resources to follow best practices to the letter. Shortcuts are taken when recovering from an outage, making minor changes to the environment, or racing to meet a deadline imposed by the business. Although the IT team has every intention of going back and resolving these issues, the realities of the modern data center make it difficult to find the time.
SirviS can help organizations reduce the “technical debt” in their IT infrastructure. Our engineers and technicians always follow best practices when implementing new technologies and performing upgrades. We also strive to remedy any inconsistencies and workarounds we uncover and leave the customer’s IT team with a more manageable environment.
Best Practices Cut Costs
An IDC study found that organizations fit into one of four groups when it comes to IT best practices: Basic, Standardized, Rationalized and Dynamic. Basic organizations spend a lot of money on IT and view it as a cost center. Standardized organizations have a more efficient data center and somewhat lower IT expenditures. Rationalized firms have very low IT costs, and view IT as a business enabler. Dynamic organizations view their IT as a strategic asset that they use to enable their business and propel it forward.
According to IDC, “an organization that moves from a Basic to a Rationalized environment has an opportunity to cut IT costs by 65 percent.” But how do organizations begin to implement IT best practices and reap those savings?
The first step is to standardize the IT environment. Having standards in place enables businesses to be much more agile when it comes to technology decisions and implementing new solutions. In addition, internal IT staff and external providers will be able to identify issues much more quickly, resulting in less downtime and lost productivity and reduced support costs.
Enabling Continuous Improvement
Once the IT environment is standardized, organizations should ensure that proper procedures are outlined and followed to ensure consistency. Four key IT processes should be implemented:
Configuration management begins with documenting the infrastructure as it exists and maintaining that documentation as things change.
Change management means that every change is tested thoroughly before it is implemented and processes are established for backing out changes should problems arise.
Knowledge management involves documenting problems and resolutions and keeping that documentation in a central location so that support personnel can access it.
When implemented correctly, IT best practices create an IT environment that continuously improves to help the organization reach its goals. Increased system availability increases productivity and morale and enables IT to help drive the business forward.
How SirviS Can Help
SirviS has extensive experience in the implementation and upgrade of equipment across large multisite environments. We perform as much upfront discovery as possible given the timeframe of the project, including site surveys and inventories of the existing IT equipment.
This not only maximizes the efficiency of our field personnel, but enables us to identify any potential issues that may need to be rectified to ensure success. The customer gains a more consistent environment and the baseline documentation needed to facilitate a best practices approach.
By following IT best practices, organizations can minimize wasted expenditures and increase uptime, productivity and business agility. Let SirviS bring the benefits of our proven best practices to your IT environment.
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