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What are SMB computer networking best practices?
I recently started a small insurance firm with 5 agents working below me. For the most part I’ve taken care of our IT and networking needs, and will continue to do so in the future. What are some best practices that I should be aware of? Are there any routine maintenance or check ups that I should be performing on our network? Any advice would be great.
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3 Answers
Dear Becky,
This situation in quite common in new SMB's and could be as complex as your IT Infrastructure and apllications grow and become more and more critical. However, this is a short list that I think you should start working on:
1. Back-ups. This is a key topic. Having your clients database secured in case of a contingency, system down etc. is a must.
2. Network/bandwidht health. As your applications, acceses grow is very common that you require to perform bandwidth analysis in order to avoid "traffic jams" which impede your business to operate.
3. Firewall. It's very important that your network is isolated from external threaths (virus, spam etc.)
There is a number of others, however this would give you a good starting point.
If need additional help, feel free to contact me.
Best regards,
Enrique Baez, PMP, RCDD, LAN Specialist
I agree with Enrique 100%.
Here is my list for you as well:
1. Backup - The most important thing you can do. Make sure that you have a backup solution that provides multiple versions of your data for a significant period of time. Also make sure that you have a current backup going off site regularly. If the place burns down, floods, or is robbed, it may be your only copy of your data.
2. Run your PCs as restricted users on a daily basis. Yes, I know users hate this, but it will keep you much safer and costs you nothing.
3. Firewall. And no, your cable or DSL modem is not a good firewall even though it is doing NAT.
4. Redundancy - Backup allows you to recover from disaster. Redundancy keeps you running when disaster hits. The most common failure in a network that could stop your whole office is a hard drive crashing on the server. RAID, while not fool proof will allow you to keep running and not need to go to your backup to recover.
Just like Enrique said, there are a number of others. If you need additional help, just ask.
Great answers from Enrique and Jason. The only thing I would add is making sure that your AV on the computers is running scans regularly and is updating regularly.
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