The good news is that your company is growing -- sales are up and you are hiring more employees. However, there are some challenges that go along with that growth. As your company grows, so does the number of employees and customers, which can put more strain on the IT system that supports all those new people. IT systems can get taxed and overloaded. For example, you could have a large increase in visits to your website during a successful product launch, but that could lead to slow performance or even a total outage. Any type of delay or disruption can lead to lost customers, lost revenue and could hurt your company’s overall reputation.
Managing this type of IT strain is especially challenging for small companies and startups that often have only one person working in IT. Some aren’t even that well-staffed, with 27 percent of small businesses having no IT support, according to a 2014 SMB Group study. So, how does a growing startup business survive its success and keep IT systems running properly? To do that, they first need to understand the potential issues that could arise, and then examine what they can do to fix or prevent them.
Where Could Problems Exist in My IT System?
First, let’s look at the structure of your IT system. It has several layers, like the layers of an onion. There is the access layer (connection to the Internet provider), the name resolution and load balancing layer, the Web delivery layer (the Web or application server), the processing layer, and the data management layer (databases and/or files). As more users and traffic are added to an IT system, overloading can occur between the various layers. Or, you could have a large number of queries that are too much for your current bandwidth level or network cards to handle. In reality, when the number of users grows rapidly, many different things could go wrong in an IT system, especially as it gets larger and more complex. The key is finding those problems early on so that you can fix them quickly (or prevent them altogether).
What Can My Company Do to Protect Itself From IT Failures?
Responding quickly is important, as it gives IT the power to fix the problem before it becomes a major issue that affects your users (employees or customers). The key to responding quickly though is finding the problem right away, and to detect patterns that show where a problem might occur in the future. This way, you can prevent problems before they even happen. How do you do this? Using a network monitoring tool that scans the components of your IT system at all times will give you visibility and insight into patterns and problem areas, and allow you to take action more quickly.
You need to know exactly where the problem is, that way you can take focused, quick action. Network monitoring tools help you to find the exact source of a problem more easily. This is important, because one issue with not knowing the exact location of a problem is you can end up changing other things in the IT system which could cause additional problems. For example, if your website was running slowly you could add another Web server, but then as a result your database crashes.
Networking monitoring tools allow you to be proactive. The benefit -- you can find and fix an IT problem before your users even know that there was a problem in the first place. The key is having a network monitoring system in place that constantly looks at different parts of your IT system and alerts you to potential problems in advance.
What Happens If, After I Find the Problem, I Can’t Find a Fast Solution to Fix It?
If the problem can’t be fixed right away and you need more time to work on it, you have the option of proactively communicating with your users to let them know about the issue. Customers, employees and other users are less likely to be upset if they know what is going on, so tell them about the problem right away, before they experience it on their own.
In the communication, it is important to be specific -- don’t be too vague. If you tell the users that there is a problem with the database that you are working on, it shows people that you have identified the problem area and you are already in the process of fixing it. Also, if possible, give an approximate time frame for when you expect to have the issue resolved, as well as any alternative actions that they can take while the problem is being worked on. For example, if there are problems with your email server, but Web-based mail is still working fine, advise employees to use Web-based mail until the issue is resolved.
What if I Use an External Provider, Such as a Cloud Provider, For Some of My IT systems? How Can I Fix a Problem That Lies Outside of My Company’s Walls?
Many small companies are turning to cloud providers, because the company’s founders have other things to do and they want to focus on their core business, not IT. According to a 2014 SMB Group study, 92 percent of SMBs are using at least one cloud business solution.
While external providers can be reliable, they can have issues and system failures too. And when a cloud provider goes down, it can have wide-ranging effects. Things can also get complex if a small business works with more than one external provider for different parts of their IT system. In addition, cloud resources are often shared, so peak load levels can be reached more often. This could cause slowness and affect application performance.
While you may be at the mercy of the external provider if a problem occurs, there is something that you can do. If you have your own network monitoring, you can send the provider a diagram with monitoring results and ask them what is going on, based on what you are seeing on your side. This diagram could show network traffic patterns or statistics that could help the provider to assess the situation.
While it’s exciting to see your company grow and prosper, it is important to protect your IT systems so that business and technology-based operations can continue to function properly as they expand. Network monitoring tools can give you the ability to quickly find problems, and find potential issues before they become problems, so you can take action before your business is affected. The key is finding exactly what the problem is, and where it is -- quickly -- and that is what network monitoring is designed to do.
For small, growing companies with a one-person IT department, network monitoring needs to be an essential part of your "IT toolkit" to help ensure your continued growth and success.
Photo Credit: wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock
Christian Twardawa is Chief Operating Officer at Paessler AG, a provider of network monitoring software based in Nuremberg, Germany.
