Build your Business IT Infrastructure Like a House

SMALL BUSINESS IT INFRASTRUCTURE

You are a successful small business. Life is good, you are growing and the sky’s the limit, right? Right!

So as planned you finally hunker down and begin to take a serious look at your IT situation. It can be overwhelming, because there area lot of components. Data, communication, systems, networks, and more!

You think, “Hmmm, where do I start?”

Here at XPERTEK IT we like to use the“House” analogy. Building your IT infrastructure is very much like building a house.

To build a successful, sturdy house you first have to start with a good foundation. From there, you add layers like electric wiring or drywall and finish with a roof.

So let’s take a look at each level of our IT Infrastructure.

Communication Foundation

01 | COMMUNICATION FOUNDATION

The floor or foundation of your IT infrastructure is communication. This is a key component because with good internet service, email service and phone service working in concert you have a stable foundation for the other components of your house.

If any of these three are not functioning properly you will have difficulty communicating and cause other parts of the house to be unstable.

Build the communication foundation of your business well, so when you need to add and expand, your system can handle it and you don’t have to start over.

Connected Servers

02 | CONNECTED SERVERS

Information travels via networks. Networks are connected with servers and firewalls and switches and wifi.

Whether it be physical or virtual, local or in the cloud, using a well spec’d server with a good firewall that offers granularity to properly fine-tune your network will go far to avoiding costly trouble tickets and service calls.

More importantly, taking measures to ensure your data is protected and secure from threats is paramount. Just know going cheap in this area is a recipe for headaches. This is the first wall of the house.

Integrated PC's

03 | INTEGRATED PC’S

The second wall is computing. Using desktop, laptop or tablet matters not, it’s the work getting done through the device at hand that is important.

As much as we like to get mileage out of our systems, it pays to use recent devices. As devices age they become inefficient because software constantly changes and consistently demands more of the hardware which is relatively static when it comes to being upgraded.

Believe it or not, hardware (even non-moving circuitry) degrades with time and use. Having good tools that meet or exceed your computing needs and are seamlessly integrated together go a long way to maintaining your productivity levels.

Mobily Connected

04 | MOBILITY

Mobility is the roof of your IT infrastructure. Being able to access your information from anywhere or anytime offers great comfort especially when offering high service levels or high transaction levels. And in today’s very mobile world, this is sometimes the most important thing.

Your technologies should be built to strengthen and enhance your mobility, not discourage or hamper it.

Cloud Access

05 | CLOUD ACCESS

Last, but not least, in our house model, is the cloud above the house. You are correct, it is not part of the house. However, it is apropos to our model! IT cloud access extends your IT infrastructure in many dimensions when applied properly. Whether it be accessing files from any connected place or backing up data separate from a local drive the cloud offers solutions that are ubiquitous in nature and certainly less expensive than traditional approaches. Coupled with mobility tools like smartphones and tablet computers cloud services will extend your reach and provide greater depth of features not seen before.