It is important to work with an IT specialist who should advise what each line item delivers to the business in terms of uptime and security. This specialist should be able to scrutinise these costs to ensure they can understand: what IT infrastructure is critical to ensuring the business is able to generate revenue and keeps operating The next step is to do a deep technical audit on the critical infrastructure discovered and advise if the following has been done or is up to date:
- Patching on all servers, laptops and desktops
- AV - is installed on all end points (server & desktops)
- Redundancy is built into critical server infrastructure
- Important business applications have been virtualised
- Hardware infrastructure is still under warranty and support
- Daily automated cloud backups are running
- Understand the cost of supporting your infrastructure (billed on an hourly basis or fixed contract)
- Ensure your firewall is licensed, configured correctly and backed up daily
Your IT consultant should be able to provide you with a full solution to cover fall the above. Often, you can build a better solution and not increase costs. Putting in the extra time you understand what you are getting for your money and working with a provider you can trust is vital these days.