Sometimes You Need A Pro So, you’re going to run to your favorite PC store and slap in a new server? Unless you are a certified IT person, allow us to politely offer this piece of advice: “No slapping without a professional, please.” Make the right choice, and your new server be running smoothly from the first day. Make the wrong choice and it won’t. Committed “do-it-yourselfers”, who pride themselves in being “do-it-yourselfers”, are inevitably the most likely to end up calling in the cavalry. These are a few ways you can really screw it up: 1. Not having a plan. 2. Not hiring a pro. When choosing someone, be sure he or she has a small business focus, the experience and certifications in small business systems and the ability to meet your reliability criteria. A competent IT consultant will set you up with a server, document how the server works, and how it will meet your needs. A server guru will also advise about likely future needs — and prepare you for them. 3. Not considering future needs Any good server should have redundant components and be built more robustly than a desktop computer. In general, a server should have multiple hard drives, the ability to support multiple processors, support for larger amounts of RAM than desktops, and fast network cards. It may also have redundant power supplies, redundant drive controllers, and a back-up system. The presence of multiple hard drives is probably the most important feature. With multiple hard drives, it is possible to set up the computer so that a copy of each piece of data is kept on separate drives. That way, if one hard drive fails, no data is lost. 4. Not playing it safe. If you embark on your server adventure with a roadmap and all the right resources, you’ll find that bringing a server online isn’t so difficult. Take shortcuts by doing it yourself , and you could end up in a long hard struggle. In other words, this is no time to go solo — even if you want to save a little money.
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Carl Mazzanti is Co-Founder and President of eMazzanti Technologies, Microsoft’s four time Partner of the Year and one of the premier IT consulting services for businesses throughout the New York metropolitan area and internationally. Carl and his company manage over 400 active accounts ranging from professional services firms to high-end global retailers.
eMazzanti is all about delivering powerful, efficient outsourced IT services, such as computer network management and troubleshooting, managed print, PCI DSS compliance, green computing, mobile workforce technology, information security, cloud computing, and business continuity and disaster recovery.
Carl Mazzanti is also a frequent business conference speaker and technology talk show guest and contributor at Microsoft-focused events, including frequent prominent roles at the Microsoft Inspire (Worldwide Partner Conference / WPC).
Carl, a serial Entrepreneur, gives back to the community through Entrepreneur teaching engagements at Georgetown University, the company’s ocean wildlife conservation effort, the Blue Project, and Tree Mazzanti.