Five Ways Enterprises Can Maximize Server Hardware Uptime

Whether it be due to faulty connections, motherboard malfunctions, overheating, or excessive humidity, server failures or downtime can lead to poor user experience, deteriorated data center performance, stolen data, business disruption, and even a loss of revenue and reputation in certain instances. According to Statista, a 2020 survey revealed that an average cost per hour of critical server downtime ranged somewhere between a whopping 301,000 and 400,000 U.S. dollars. This poses significant challenges for the companies, given their already stringent IT budget.

To further exacerbate the problem, companies often spend their time, effort, and resources on activities and approaches that don’t necessarily improve server performance and uptime. Organizations must follow certain critical best practices given the complexities associated with severe server outages. It can help them keep the servers up and running, conduct quick troubleshooting, and identify potential bottlenecks, ensuring business continuity.

Best Practices To Minimize Server Downtime

Server downtime refers to a period during which the company’s server hardware is offline, dysfunctional, or unavailable. Server downtime can be categorized into ‘planned’ and ‘unplanned’. While planned downtime is often a result of updates, hardware refreshes, and maintenance, unplanned downtime can occur due to poor hardware configuration, security concerns, overload, and a range of other issues. Outlined below are some of the ways enterprises can boost server uptime and ensure operational efficiency:

• Invest in high-quality hardware

Poor quality or damaged servers are among the most common causes of outages and downtime. Given the rapidly growing business data and devices across organizations, companies must invest in high-performing, scalable, and robust server hardware that can efficiently deliver under high-stress IT environments. Before buying a server, companies should consider crucial factors such as their business requirements, budget, type of server hardware (e.g., tower, rack, mainframe, blade), and vendor legitimacy. Some key technical specifications that companies should watch out for include server processing power, RAM, transfer speed, storage capacity, and expandability.

• Perform regular backups

To ensure the smooth functioning of servers, companies must frequently back up their servers. Regular backups will ensure that business-critical data stored in servers is safe and can be recovered during server failures. The company won’t suffer tremendous data loss, which can occur if there are no server backups. Companies should also verify their backups regularly to ensure they restore correctly onto a server during disaster recovery scenarios. Furthermore, many companies leverage colocation rental data center services for server redundancy and greater uptime during unexpected outages. Not only do companies get uninterruptible power supply (UPS), but some colocation providers guarantee 99% and above server uptime in SLAs.

• Constantly monitor hardware health

Another way to ensure high uptime is to proactively monitor servers’ overall health across the company’s IT infrastructure. This will help identify and resolve any inefficiencies in a server that could lead to a crash and subsequent downtime. While companies can deploy a team of IT professionals to scan for server issues manually, intelligent hardware monitoring tools can be more efficient. They help speed up the server monitoring process, boost overall productivity, and keep tabs on essential parameters such as server load and space, hardware performance, etc.

• Conduct routine server maintenance

Scheduling periodic server maintenance is one of the most effective ways to ensure smooth and trouble-free hardware performance. Given that servers run 24/7, it’s imperative that companies incorporate timely server checkups, critical updates, and fixes. Without a proper server maintenance plan, companies risk damaging their server hardware partially or totally, leading to significant downtime and negative financial implications. Companies can either leverage their own IT team to maintain servers or choose reliable third-party maintenance (TPM) for routine server maintenance.

• Amp up Security Efforts

It’s vital to incorporate measures that ensure improved server security, thereby increasing server uptime. Companies can practice authorized access to server sites to avoid unwanted intrusion for the physical protection of the servers. Similarly, biometric fingerprints, scanners, video camera surveillance, and alarms can be leveraged by companies to bolster security. To avoid cyber-attacks and data breaches, companies should always use anti-malware and anti-DDoS products, configure firewalls, and perform timely audits to spot vulnerabilities in servers and release the necessary patches.

Boost Server Performance and Uptime With CXtec Maintenance Solution

Server hardware plays an integral role across an organization’s IT infrastructure. While dealing with frequent server failures can be frustrating, companies can take several steps to avoid unwanted downtime. As discussed, careful planning, proper life-cycle management, and regular maintenance can help companies effortlessly troubleshoot issues and operate servers at optimal levels. Companies can partner with a trusted third-party maintenance (TPM) provider that offers flexible plans, instant technical support, and extensive expertise to further ensure high uptime and periodic server maintenance.

At CXtec, a premium IT and hardware services company, we have over 40 years of rich experience addressing our clients’ hardware maintenance, management, storage, and support needs. RapidCare® service, a third-party maintenance (TPM) solution by CXtec, offers a cost-effective and tailor-made maintenance strategy for enterprises, focusing on their unique requirements. Companies can benefit from excellent response time, reliable support delivery, multiple service levels (8x5xNBD, 24x7xNBD, and 24x7x4) for technical support, high-quality and sustainable hardware replacement, and rich expertise across various brands, including Cisco, Nortel, 3Com, etc. Additionally, companies partnering with CXtec can save up to 60% on server support and maintenance.

To learn more about how CXtec RapidCare service can help maximize server uptime and provide the support you need, visit the page:

https://www.cxtec.com/services/rapidcare/