There are two ways to deal with unplanned IT failure: to insure and to ensure against it. These two words, to insure and to ensure are often confused in people’s minds, but understanding the difference between the two is essential to creating the best IT security and recovery system.

Definitions

To insure something is to put in place a safety net in the case something goes wrong. That is why you purchase car insurance against the event that you have a car wreck. Most people do not experience a car wreck and so their insurance policy is worthless to them, until they do.

To ensure against an adverse event is to set up systems to make as certain as possible that you will not have a negative event in the first place. Cars are ensured against wrecks by required licensing, insurance companies ensure their product by offering discounts to safe drivers, drivers over a certain age, etc. Stoplights, stop-signs and turnabouts are all systems local governments put in place to ensure against wrecks at intersections.

Application to IT

While many people understand insurance from a legal/industrial position, they do not understand the idea of insurance that motivates industry practices like RAID redundancy and nightly server back-ups. These are all practices that put in place a recovery plan in the event that servers crash or other unplanned events cause a loss in your data.

On the other hand, activities like IT Monthly Management Reporting, anti-malware software, and virus monitoring ensure that your software and hardware will run as optimized as possible. This in turn prevents many of the problems that reduce the life of your servers.

Ensurance acts to prevent a problem, insurance creates a back-up in the event that the problem occurs. Most people understand the importance of insurance (backups) for their business IT systems, but many do not understand the importance of ensurance.

Ensure Your Data Systems

There are several steps you need to take to ensure that your systems operate at their best and prevent data loss and server failure as much as possible. Regular monitoring for viruses and security is essential for problem prevention. Monthly comprehensive IT management reports give your IT team the tools necessary to locate problem areas before they get too serious and to accurately address problems.

To properly ensure you are not caught unawares by data problems, these monitoring and reporting activities must be integrated into your regular IT routine. Your IT team must understand the strengths of your servers and your network and address any issues as they arise.

Benefits of Active IT Maintenance

Purposeful IT maintenance and problem prevention provides additional benefits beyond preventing data loss. Increased data security, budget planning, and systems management are all results of building a system of monthly proactive IT management.

Data security is essential for businesses of all size, as seen by the high-profile hacks in the last few years in the news. Although it is impossible to prevent all security leaks, active maintenance will give you the best response possible to outside threats while well-implemented security protocols will provide your best prevention of internal security threats.

Finding the right IT system for your budget is always difficult, but doing so without the right information at hand is nearly impossible. Unless you know how your current system is performing with regular reporting, you cannot know whether the really nice servers your team requested are necessary or merely nice. With monthly reports of all your IT management, you will have accurate and timely information on which to base your budget decisions.

The power of proactive management of your IT ensures against many of the threats businesses face in the technology market today. For more information about management reporting and active monitoring, please contact us today.