IT Support Providers in Kent: Is IT Maintenance and Updates important?

Posted on 23rd May 202323rd May 2023 by James Kirby

IT support providers in Kent are essential for ensuring your business network is running at optimal performance. Because today’s business world is almost exclusively digital, businesses in Kent rely heavily on information technology. And technology is only great when it works.

If your IT infrastructure runs into a problem, the efficiency and profitability of your business suffer. It could even be the case that your entire operation comes to a grinding halt. Consequently, IT maintenance and updates take on even greater importance.

IT maintenance and updates are crucial for security, performance, compatibility, feature enhancements, compliance, and support. By investing time and resources into these activities, you can ensure that your IT infrastructure remains robust, efficient, and resilient to emerging challenges.

The purpose of IT maintenance is to identify bottlenecks, bandwidth issues, and other performance-related problems on a business network. This helps to ensure your employees have the platform to achieve optimal productivity and collaboration.

Software tools also require updates for several reasons. In most instances, updates are to fix bugs and optimise performance in order to enhance the efficiency of your systems, leading to smoother operations and better user experiences.

Other times, software updates are specifically released to issue a security patch. We’ll be discussing this and more in the following content. By the end of this piece we hope to have answered all your questions about why IT support in Kent is important for overseeing the maintenance and updates of your IT infrastructure.

IT Maintenance Tasks

IT Maintenance tasks include monitoring resource utilisation and optimising their allocation across the network. IT maintenance involves optimising the hardware components of your network, such as servers, routers, switches, and other network devices.

By analysing network traffic patterns and adjusting settings, IT professionals can ensure that network resources, such as bandwidth, CPU, and memory, are properly distributed to meet the demands of users and applications. This helps prevent network congestion, latency, and slowdowns that can degrade performance.

We do all this by using advanced monitoring tools that allow managed IT support teams in Kent to keep tabs on your IT infrastructure remotely. By utilising network monitoring tools, we can ensure the traffic on your network have authorisation access, identify and ease congestion points, and optimise network configurations for improved performance.

Monitoring tools also enable us to identify issues that are brewing in the system. When potential errors are found, the system alerts our IT support providers in Kent so that they can resolve oncoming issues on the network before they become a problem.

By conducting regular inspections, monitoring performance metrics, and implementing proactive maintenance practices, our IT professionals help to maximise uptime by minimising downtime. Our specialists in Kent aim to achieve 99.999% availability.

Because database maintenance is a critical component of many business networks maintenance and updates are an important feature. Regular maintenance helps to optimise the performance of your database.

Maintaining a database includes tasks like indexing, defragmentation, data cleanup, and database tuning. By ensuring that databases are properly maintained, businesses can experience faster query response times, improved data retrieval, and overall better performance for applications relying on database access.

Operating systems, applications, and network firmware is also central to the maintenance and update responsibilities of managed IT support services in Kent.

Tech companies often release updates and patches to address bugs, security vulnerabilities, and performance optimisation. By regularly applying these updates, you can ensure that your network devices and software are running the latest stable versions. This helps to improve performance, resolve compatibility issues, and protect against security threats that can impact network performance.

You also have the option to outsource hardware optimisation to IT support providers in Kent. This includes tasks like cleaning dust and debris from equipment, ensuring proper ventilation and cooling, and replacing faulty or outdated components. By keeping the hardware in good condition, you can prevent performance issues related to hardware failures or inefficiencies.

Why are Planned IT Maintenance and Updates Important?

We recommend scheduling maintenance and updates in advance for a number of reasons. The most important reason for planning maintenance and updates is to minimise disruptions to your operations.

Planned maintenance allows you to choose the most suitable time for system downtime or reduced availability if that’s the case. When IT support professionals are working on maintenance and updates, it’s important to understand that a certain app or function will not be available for use.

The best practice is to schedule maintenance and updates during evenings or weekends. This gives your IT team the opportunity to make sure the update is running smoothly and reduces the risk of unexpected system failures or performance issues during crucial business hours.

Regular planned maintenance also allows IT professionals to proactively monitor and diagnose the health of your IT systems. There’s more benefit to identifying potential areas of concern and taking necessary actions to prevent major problems than proactively responding to system failures after they happen. By conducting preventive maintenance, businesses can avoid costly and time-consuming emergency repairs or recovery processes.

Planned maintenance and updates are essential for addressing security vulnerabilities in IT systems. Cyber threats are constantly evolving, and gateways can emerge in software and IT frameworks. If these gateways are not identified and addressed they could be exploited by hackers. And that could be disastrous for the continuity of your business.

By regularly applying these updates, IT support providers in Kent can ensure your systems are protected against the latest security risks, reducing the chances of data breaches, malware infections, and other security incidents.

Because technology evolves rapidly, maintenance becomes important to ensure that IT systems remain compatible with new software, hardware, and industry standards. By regularly updating and maintaining IT infrastructure, businesses in Kent can avoid compatibility issues when integrating new technologies or upgrading existing components. This enables smooth operations and effective collaboration across various systems and platforms.

Compliance and regulatory requirements can also play a crucial role in how companies are obligated to maintain their systems. Industries that are subject to specific regulatory requirements related to IT infrastructure, security, and data privacy should really be planning regular IT maintenance to ensure that systems remain compliant with these regulations. By conducting regular audits, assessments, and updates, businesses can demonstrate their commitment to data compliance and mitigate potential legal and financial risks associated with non-compliance.

How do you identify what IT maintenance to carry out and what should be left to the experts?

Working with managed IT support providers in Kent usually involves teamwork. This is especially the case if you have an in-house IT team. The responsibilities of both parties should be determined from the outset.

The key benefit of outsourcing your IT is to allow your in-house team to focus on strategy and the core requirements of your business. All the routine maintenance and updates can be handled by your outsourced IT support provider in Kent.

Identifying what IT maintenance tasks can be handled internally and what should be left to us depends on various factors such as the complexity of the task, the expertise required and the resources you have available within the organisation.

For example, firms that offer IT support in Kent typically employ technical experts that are capable of handling complex maintenance tasks in specialist areas such as cloud computing and IT security.

You may decide that routine tasks like software updates, system monitoring, and basic hardware maintenance can often be managed by your internal IT team whilst we handle the complex tasks like network infrastructure design, major software upgrades, or security assessments that may require specialised knowledge and skills that are best handled by external experts.

Before deciding where responsibility should lie, it’s best practice to evaluate the potential risks and impact associated with the maintenance tasks. Critical and high-risk activities can have a significant impact on system availability, security, or data integrity and may be better suited for expert assistance. For instance, if there’s a need for extensive network restructuring or major data migration, it may be prudent to involve professionals who have expertise in those areas to minimise risks and ensure a smooth transition.

Time and resource constraints may also be a factor for consideration. If your in-house team is already stretched or you don’t have the resources to properly execute maintenance tasks within the required timeframe, it might be more efficient to engage external experts who can provide dedicated resources and expertise to get the job done effectively and efficiently.

One final consideration is planning for the future and the potential to scale. Working with IT support providers in Kent will help you to create a future-proof IT infrastructure that enables you to scale easily or add, technological advancements as and when they become available.

Are Windows/Android/iOS updates important?

Sometimes yes, but arguably not every time. It depends on what bugs the software company has addressed and how much the defects were impacting the performance of your business network.

But in general, installing updates on software and apps as soon as possible is the best option for several reasons. And none more so than security updates.

Security updates include patches and fixes for known security vulnerabilities. By keeping your operating system up to date, you ensure that your device is protected against the latest threats, reducing the risk of malware infections, data breaches, and unauthorised access. For more information about the importance of security updates, read our article on why you need patch management services.

Software updates also improve the stability and performance and may include, new features, functionalities, and improvements to the user interface. Updates can give you access to new tools, capabilities, and user experience enhancements, which can enhance productivity, provide additional functionality, and improve the overall usability of your device.

In some cases, you may have to update software in order to continue vendor support for a particulate application. Software companies typically require you to be running the latest version of the operating system in order for them to provide support.

How often should you update antivirus software?

The frequency of updating antivirus software depends on the specific software you’re using and how central it is to your business operations.

The best practice is to act upon the recommendations of the antivirus vendor. However, in general, it is recommended to update your antivirus software at least once a day or whenever updates are made available by the vendor. Fortunately, most modern antivirus software is designed to update automatically so you don’t have to worry too much about running manual updates.

IT Service Continuity v Disaster Recovery

IT Service Continuity (ITSC) refers to the processes and measures put in place to ensure the ongoing availability and delivery of critical IT services to support business operations.

It encompasses a broader approach and considers both technology and non-technology aspects. ITSC involves planning and implementing strategies to prevent, minimise, and recover from disruptions to IT services, regardless of the cause. ITSC encompasses a broader perspective, considering both technology and non-technology factors to maintain the continuity of business services.

Disaster Recovery (DR), on the other hand, specifically focuses on the technical recovery and restoration of IT systems and data after a disruption to your business network or a disaster such as a power outage or data breach.

DR typically involves could backup and data recovery protection, data replication and offsite storage, testing and validation and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) which defines the acceptable amount of data loss and the maximum tolerable downtime for each critical system, respectively.

Both ITSC and DR are essential components of a comprehensive business continuity strategy, working together to minimise downtime, protect data, and ensure the continuity of critical operations in the face of disruptions.