Five Keys for a Healthy, Reliable, Safe, and Useful Computer
Businesses, organizations and individuals need their computers to be reliable and useful. Here are the five key items I evaluate when caring for any computer.
- Productivity (Software)
- Continuity (Backup)
- Security (Protection)
- Health (Prevention)
- Service (Reaction)
Click on each tab below for more details.
Businesses will generally select a package of services to ensure all 5 areas are covered, or will sometimes choose which are most important for them. Individuals often mix and match, looking after some parts themselves and purchasing some services or products to cover other areas.
Productivity is about ensuring you have the software and tools you need to work efficiently and collaboratively.
- Microsoft 365 Business is the industry standard. It provides Word, Excel, Outlook, Email accounts, Calendars, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, and more to look after creating, viewing, and sharing information securely.
- Your organization may also need other software, like Quickbooks, CAD, Point-of-Sale, and others, specific to your needs.
- For individuals, Microsoft 365 Home is popular for basic needs. Beyond that, individual's interests and needs vary widely.
Continuity is about the ability to continue in the face of problems, whether you've encountered data loss, hardware failure, a virus, ransomware, a hack, theft, or other major setbacks. Consistent, reliable, confirmed backups take much of the sting out of these bad experiences. You might need several, or maybe just one of the following options.
- Fully monitored and managed backup services, continuous and automatic, with no hardware to purchase or configure.
- Backup of cloud accounts (Email, Calendars, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams), to ensure the safety of your most valuable data.
- Backup of local files or NAS.
- For individuals, backup may be managed by the user, for instance by copying to a local external drive, or purchasing a home license for continuous backup services like Carbonite or Acronis.
Security is about protecting you from threats before they cause any harm. EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) is the business standard now, but traditional Anti-Virus is still a popular choice.
- Monitored and Managed EndPoint Detection and Response (EDR). Bitlink offers SentinelOne to provide protection, detection, and recovery well beyond what traditional anti-virus products can offer.
- Monitored traditional antivirus is also available with BitDefender.
- Individuals sometime have a favourte anti-virus program they prefer to use, and look after it themselves.
- If nothing else is installed, Windows built-in Defender and firewall provide basic, but fairly good protection.
Computer health is about preventative actions and monitoring, to provide the best performance and fewest surprises.
- Bitlink provices continuous monitoring of computer health (including items such as drive health, free space, system temperatures, event and error logs, patch status), which can help prevent and predict problems before they arise.
- Windows updates, system updates, and other software updates can be monitored and/or automated to ensure security patches, fixes, and updates are always up to date, taking this out of the hands of your users.
- And of course, continuous monitoring all the Continuity (backup) services and Security services is critical to knowing that everything is working well.
Service is about getting the help you need, when you need it. Sometimes things just go wrong. Sometimes you have a new idea or a new need. Help is easy to access.
- On demand help as needed, just a phone call, email or message away.
- Remote access allows for speedier and often more efficient response.
- Got a project in mind, or some want to make some changes? We can explore the options.
- A full Help System with trouble tickets, progress tracking and detailed reporting is available, if desired.
Whether you are looking for a single "Employee Package" that covers everything for one monthly rate, or just need help with one or two of those needs, or have some further questions, feel free to contact me. Links to email or phone are at the bottom of every page.
