Companies that rely on their IT environment know that downtime is expensive. Businesses can take a significant financial hit when faced with unexpected outages. Employee productivity and operational efficiency plummet when internal systems are unavailable. Customers are frustrated and may seek alternative solutions when they cannot access the services they expect.
All applications share a common characteristic regardless of whether they target internal or external users. Hardware forms the foundation of every IT system and procedure. Every application your business depends on runs on physical equipment. The health of this equipment directly impacts the performance and availability of mission-critical systems and applications.
Cloud service providers (CSPs) are responsible for maintaining the health of the hardware used to deliver services to their customers. This responsibility, assumed by the CSPs, is one of the reasons companies migrate to the cloud. Cloud computing customers can focus on supporting business applications without worrying about equipment health.
Organizations with an on-premises data center don’t have this luxury. They must ensure their hardware operates efficiently and meets operational requirements. Businesses can avoid the risks of unexpected outages by conducting regular equipment health checks with internal teams or a trusted third party.
What Causes Hardware Outages?
The hardware underlying every IT environment is subject to physical limitations. A component can fail or exhibit degraded performance for various reasons, triggering further failures that quickly impact business operations. Hardware outages are commonly caused by the following issues or oversights.
- Physical equipment failure: All hardware components eventually break or degrade. For example, hard drives experience mechanical wear and tear that often results in complete failure or unacceptable performance. Processors can overheat and burn out from excessive usage, rendering a critical server useless. In some cases, a manufacturing defect may be responsible for hardware failure.
- Environmental factors: Hardware is adversely affected by excessive heat due to insufficient cooling or poor airflow. Temperature spikes in the server room can cause equipment degradation and unexpected shutdowns. Components can be impacted by high humidity, blocked air vents, and dust.
- Faulty network connectivity: An organization’s servers may be operating efficiently, but be inaccessible due to the failure of network components such as routers or switches. A faulty component or damaged cable can cause widespread outages that disrupt business operations and customer service.
- Legacy equipment: Companies using hardware that has exceeded its recommended lifecycle risk business-impacting equipment failure. Older components are more likely to fail and may be difficult or even impossible to repair, depending on the availability of replacement parts. Teams often experience slower performance with legacy components and cannot keep up with modern workloads.
- Lack of preventive maintenance: Many hardware outages could have been avoided by performing regularly scheduled preventive maintenance. Teams must remove dust accumulations, ensure cooling systems are operating efficiently, and keep up with manufacturers’ maintenance recommendations. Organizations that neglect their hardware are setting themselves up for expensive downtime.
- Poorly designed environments: Companies can experience outages due to architectural weaknesses in their IT environment. Poor architecture can result in single points of failure and no failover systems. System performance can suffer from insufficient power or improper load balancing, putting unnecessary pressure on fragile hardware components.
What is an IT Equipment Health Check?
An IT equipment health check is a comprehensive assessment of a company’s IT hardware and infrastructure to verify its ability to deliver consistent, secure performance. The health check is intended to identify risks, potential failure points, and inefficient equipment use that could result in data loss or outages. The objective is to address any findings from the health check before they impact the IT environment and the business.
A qualified internal team can perform a health check, but companies can benefit from engaging a managed service provider (MSP) to conduct the activities. The MSP’s experience can be crucial in uncovering issues in on-premises environments and paving the way for a smooth cloud migration.
A typical health check will involve the following elements.
Assessing hardware condition and performance
The team performing the health check should examine all servers, workstations, network devices, power supplies, and storage systems to identify components that are failing or likely to fail in the near future. Companies should act quickly and replace obsolete or underperforming equipment to avoid unexpected outages. If the health check is part of cloud migration preparation, organizations should use the gathered information to prioritize systems for transition to a newer, more robust environment.
Reviewing security to identify vulnerabilities
The health check should include an in-depth review of the equipment’s security posture. The review ensures that all patches and vendor firmware updates have been applied to address known vulnerabilities. Companies should harden access to hardware to prevent unauthorized use or data breaches.
Verifying environmental conditions
The health check team should examine the environmental conditions, including dust, humidity, and temperature, that affect the IT equipment. The team must ensure proper cooling and airflow are available to protect the hardware and maintain peak performance. In some cases, server racks may need to be realigned to address hot spots or dead air. Hardware should also be protected by physical security, such as locks.
Evaluating equipment lifecycle and replacement
A thorough health check will evaluate current hardware against its expected lifecycle and recommend replacement when necessary. Companies must understand the risks of running equipment past the manufacturer’s recommendations or out of support. A third-party health-check team can provide historical failure rates for similar equipment, which may help support replacement initiatives.
VAST Helps Promote IT Equipment Health
VAST offers on-premises IT services, including rigorous equipment health checks to ensure your computing environment meets your business requirements. VAST’s experts will perform the preventive maintenance required to optimize your on-premises infrastructure. We can identify weaknesses that may put your business at risk for unexpected downtime.
Our expertise and strategic partnerships with leading vendors give us the perspective needed to fine-tune your existing environment and make informed recommendations to enhance it and address evolving market conditions. We offer comprehensive cloud migration services if your company chooses to go that route.
Contact us today and learn how we can keep your IT hardware and business healthy.
