Maintenance
Maintenace is a catch all word describing a multitude of activities designed to ensure your systems are working at their peak efficiency. The following describes many of the activities we conduct at Earl Consulting Services to keep systems running smoothly.
Antivirus Definitions and Engine Updates - It is important to enure that your antivirus definitions are up to date. With the latest definitions your antivirus program has the ability to detect new viruses you may encounter. Engine updates are equally important aspect to your antivirus strategy. Updates to the antivirus engine allow the program to employ new techniques to find viruses. Without engine updates whole families of viruses would not be detectable even with dilligent definition updates. With regular maintenance we ensure updates are tested and deployed on a timely basis.
Backup Log Analysis - Backups are critical to your ability to recover from data loss. In the event of system failure, it is very important to have a good backup. Backup jobs can fail for many reasons. The backup log will show if a backup tape is bad, critical files in use at the time of backup, backup drive failure or other loss of connectivity with backup media, backup media is full, etc. For this reason, regular inspection of backup logs and timely resolution of problems is critical to ensuring you have reliable backups in case of critical systems failure.
System Log Analysis - By examining the logs of your workstations and servers it is possible to detect errors and problems on your computers before they effect the productivity of your workers. A great example of this is a failing hard drive. Typically errors will begin to appear in the event log days or months before a hard drive crashes causing loss of productivity and perhaps data loss. Events like this can be prevented by examining these logs and replacing the defective drive before it becomes a problem. There are many other examples of correctable event log problems that can be resolved without loss of productivity.
Security Analysis - Windows update is not perfect. Sometimes important security patches are not deployed properly to workstations. At Earl Consulting Services we utilize network analysis utilities on workstations and servers to determine if security patches were actually deployed. This includes not only Microsoft patches but Adobe, Apple, and many other vendors who have high profile secutiy vulnerabilities. Once it is determined which computers are having difficulties installing the patches, the patch can be manually implemented and the problem with the automatic updating mechanism corrected.
Hardware Repair - From time to time computer components fail. A spare computer can be used to keep an employee productive but eventually the defective computer needs to be repaired and returned to the employee to ensure maximum productivity. At Earl Consulting Services we are skilled in computer diagnostics and repair.
