(5-Nov-10) Sometimes it’s hard to find time to put out fires or perform high-priority tasks in the data center, let alone perform routine tasks. But when it comes down to it, hardware maintenance is a necessary routine, because if you neglect it, you’ll soon have to put out more fires and perform even higher-priority tasks. To prevent all of the above from happening, it’s important to fine-tune and improve your hardware maintenance routines. Here are a few tips and pieces of advice that can help.
One of the first things to determine is if you want maintenance or support, according to Dana Collins, senior vice president of support services at Abtech Support (www.abtechsupport.com). “You can get a hardware break and fix maintenance contract from several maintenance companies that can swap out parts,” Collins says. “It is, however, an entirely different scenario if you need support; that is, getting your system up and running when the pressure is on. Just because the light goes from amber to green when an engineer replaces a hard drive doesn’t mean that a system that supports a critical part of a business is operational again.”