Corbel’s 8 Tips To Enhance Your Server Management

Successfully managing your servers is key to enhancing your business operations. But how exactly can you do that?

Corbel, who offer business IT Support in Ipswich; including Cyber Security and Business Continuity solutions, have written this article to share 8 tips on improving your server management. 

You may have up-to-the-minute servers, but their efficiency can reduce over time. Managing them is key to enhancing your business operations.

Many organisations rely on servers for various IT tasks, such as running applications, emails, hosting websites and data storage. 

Although many businesses have turned to cloud services, such as Microsoft Azure, many companies still depend on in-house servers. As such, they need to ensure their devices remain in top condition.

That’s where managed IT support and proactive server management plays a large part.

Managing your servers can streamline the performance of your company by allowing your team or your IT support company to complete difficult tasks faster. In addition, it can assist them to detect problems swiftly at the beginning or before they get out of hand and compromise your business. As a result, the danger of experiencing operational obstacles is drastically lower. 

But the only way to make the most of your server management is to execute your essential management tasks regularly and effectively. And to help you do so, this article will share 8 tips on enhancing your server management. 

1. Mount the Servers Correctly

Businesses in Ipswich, Felixstowe and the surrounding Suffolk area  often need to prioritize instant priorities over long-term plans.

When you first set up your servers, it might be tempting to connect them near your workstations. However, this can harm your hardware. 

Installing your infrastructure in racks is a much better idea. It can protect them from accidents in high-traffic areas, tripping hazards, spills, and dust. 

Additionally, racks can help keep the hardware safe by organizing it in an accessible area that simplifies management and cleaning. They also limit the risk of regular wear and tear in the office. 

Another important consideration is to plan for the future when installing your servers. 

When selecting a rack mount, be sure there’s enough space to expand your hardware. Unless your office is tiny, having half-empty racks is more desired to tearing them down and redesigning them a few years down the line.

2. Separate your Infrastructure from your Main Office Area

Dependent on the type of servers, they can get quite loud when in operation. On top of that, they can comprise of valuable hardware. So, you’ll want to separate them physically from the working premises. 

If you can’t budget for a designated server room, invest in secure rack mounts with integrated sound reduction. 

3. Maintain your Hardware

Hardware upkeep plays a necessary role in server management. Without reliable hardware, your productivity can drop. 

To avoid this scenario, you need to observe the essential elements of your server: 

• CPU (Central Processing Unit)- Your CPU is the core of your servers, performing all computations for running programs. You need to constantly monitor it to avoid overuse. If it operates near 100% of its power, your team can’t carry out additional tasks due to slowness.  It may require chip upgrades or performance tuning to alleviate the stress. 
• RAM (Random Access Memory)- This is the working memory of your server, as it runs faster than hard disk drives. The more RAM you have, the better the performance of your server. Closely monitor its usage and add more memory when it gets near to its full capacity. 
• Hard drive- The hard drive is the permanent storage of your servers. It saves your data and programs, but its operation can lessen with overuse. Proper hard disk management entails keeping track of the accessible space, deleting needless files, installing new drives, or including cloud-based solutions.

4. Provide Optimal Cooling

You want your servers to perform quickly, but the only way to ensure this is to provide ideal conditions. That said, you should largely focus on cooling the servers. Excess heat can considerably decrease their lifespan. 

The best practice here is to make sure your cooling device operates outside your offices. 

Additionally, if you experience a power outage or central air doesn’t work at night, you need a cooling solution that can run on backup power.

5. Maintain and Manage your Software

Software utilised on your server requires regular maintenance, too. The key is to carry out regular updates and delete old software to boost performance. Your servers will operate better, and there will be fewer vulnerabilities cybercriminals can exploit to access your network.

6. Ensure your wiring is neat

The quantity of wiring in your server infrastructure can be overwhelming, especially if you have no technical experience. Sorting out the confusion doesn’t only improve cleanliness, but it can also help increase the performance of your server viability for future upgrades. 

Bear in mind that whenever you’re removing, rearranging, or installing your cables, label and group them neatly. Doing so helps prevent clutter.  

If you are working with an IT Support Company they should do this for you automatically as it will make any troubleshooting easier moving forward.

7. Make Cyber Security a Top Priority

As previously stated, servers can be prone to cyberattacks. That’s why it’s vital to maintain a secure system and develop a Cyber Security culture. Here’s what you should do: 

• Install and update antivirus software. 
• Prevent unauthorized traffic with firewalls. 
• Use robust access control software or sound password policies and instruct your users to change them regularly. 
• Encrypt external networks and data storage. 
• Analyse and employ security logging measures to understand potential threats. 

8. Make sure you have tested your Backup and Business Continuity Plan

The last part of robust server management is backing up your data regularly. After all, loss of information can be devastating, harming your reputation and losing your customers. 

Besides backing up server software and hardware, you should also have a backup for your power supply to prevent data losses during power outages. Furthermore, you can integrate with various tools to accelerate backups, recoveries, and status monitoring. 

Look for solutions that covers both your IT architecture and operating system. It needs to work across systems and applications you currently have or plan on installing. Furthermore, it should diagnose server issues efficiently with powerful analytic capabilities. 

If you work with an IT Support company, as part of their IT Managed Service they will undertake regular checks for you whether it be verifying the back-up chain daily, testing servers booting up so that you are fully prepared in a disaster scenario.

SERVER MANAGEMENT AT ITS FINEST

Managing effective server operation involves numerous key considerations, from monitoring system temperature to updates and data backups. Even though this can be a laborious process, it’s integral to optimising your server performance and eliminating cyber security concerns. 

If you need help in optimum server management in your business, we’d love to help you out. Contact us and let’s have a quick, no-obligation chat about it.

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Corbel offer IT Support in Ipswich specifically for small and medium businesses including Managed IT Support for all your hardware requirements whether they be on-premise or cloud based.