Risk assessment sounds great, but when dealing with business technology, many of the the risk factors can be confusing--sometimes intentionally. Some devices only show certain statistics or lack reliable return warranty information, and some services have convoluted escape clauses that activate when you have a complaint. The relationships between hardware, software, networking, and vendor politics can be difficult to navigate, but a bit of equipment up time and maintenance insight can help you break down the documentation and drama to real-time statistics.

A Slow Process Of Elimination

A delay in one part of the system is a delay in the whole. Latency--delay in network performance--and lagging hardware can be caused by various individual problems, but in addition to sending a repair technician to the task or ordering a replacement part, you need to know how specific components affect the whole system.

The answer is often "it all breaks", but not always.

A failing storage drive can lead to delayed performance, but the cause of the delay may not be obvious. The end result may have slowed down, but how would you know where to look? A file server scenario can help explain the issue.

User A is downloading a file from Server A. Server A has a lot of drives for holding files, and out of 5 solid state drives (SSDs), SSD 3 is the only drive with User A's information.

User A notices that the file is taking a long time to download. He asks User B about any delays, but she is able to copy files just fine. User A stops the download and copies something else with no problems at all. It seems to be only a specific file from SSD 3, but the user can't tell which drive is being used because all of the drives are networked together as one big server resource.

Since User B has no problems, the issue isn't the network itself. Since User A can access other files, it isn't the computer specifically. By process of elimination, it's a problem with the file. Technician A looks at the file and isn't sure if it's a failed drive, a corrupted file, or if the file is already in use.

All of these scenarios can be checked with a series of clicks, but what if these diagnostics could be viewed without relying on the process of elimination as often?

Recording Performance Delays And Failure

An effective system has a thorough set of reports. To help out with the previous scenario, a business operations management service can apply monitors to different hardware performance points to show the "health" of different devices. 

With accurate reports and suggested maintenance routes, you can stop many hardware and software problems with planned maintenance and faster reports in case users need to work around a problem. Fast reports means that technicians can get to their job and users won't have to scratch their heads about what's going on. Hopefully they have other productive tasks, but even sitting idle is better than a user trying to troubleshoot an issue beyond their control.

Contact an equipment up time and management services professional to discuss different ways to maintain control of hardware performance.

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