Is your network infrastructure a Frankenstein’s monster of mismatched tools and quick fixes? This is what most small business IT looks like; companies adopt solutions without a thought as to how they are supposed to work together, and it ultimately ends up impacting operations. This creates tech debt, and not the monetary kind, that is hard to bounce back from without taking a serious look at your IT practices.
Today, we’re examining tech debt and how it creates hidden points of failure across your business, as well as how you can put a stop to it.
Understanding Tech Debt
Before you can build a stable future for your business, you first need to look at where your foundation is cracking.
When we say “tech debt,” we’re not talking about how much a new server or workstation puts you back; rather, we’re talking about the accumulating cost of easy, short-term solutions over long-term, proactive decisions. It’s like using a residential router for a 20-person office or keeping an old server running just because it hasn’t died on you yet (although that could happen any day now). These decisions might have been appropriate at the time—perhaps you only had 5 employees in the past, and perhaps that server was brand new at one point—but these small decisions add up and cost your business over time.
You can’t escape this mess without understanding what you’re working with, and that starts with an audit.
Start With an Audit
Step 1 of any plan to improve your business should be to examine what you’re already doing and what’s working (or not working).
In this case, we’re running an audit of your infrastructure to get a comprehensive picture of its health. This means documenting every single asset on your network, from laptops to software. But we’re going further, also looking for the “invisible” assets that are there, just not visible during day-to-day operations to most of your staff.
So what actually goes into an audit? Here’s your checklist:
What You Should Look For
Again, an audit is more than just surface-level. You’ll want to look at all components of your business, including the following:
- The hardware - The bones of your business, like your switches, routers, access points, servers, and workstations. Be sure to consider their age and warranty status.
- The software - The organs of your business, including your operating systems, applications, and security measures. Make sure it’s all supported by your vendors.
- The connections - The connective tissue of your business, such as your internal cabling, VPN stability, and ISP speeds.
Does your business need to escape tech debt? The answer is usually yes to some degree, depending on how responsible you’ve been with your IT acquisition and implementation. To make escaping from tech debt easier, we recommend you work with a managed service provider like Flexnet Networks LLC. We’ll look at your current practices and how you can adjust. Learn more today by calling us at (432) 520-3539.
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