Don’t Let Sleeping Tech “Dogs” Lie

Hey! Murphy here, your Technology Therapy Specialist with a Monday Musing about sleeping technology dogs. I enjoy a good nap as much as the next doodle, but when it comes to your technology “dogs” (those things that are old/aging but kinda sorta still work) like that old PBX system or that power management box in the corner of the server room, I’m beggin’ you don’t ignore these ticking time bombs.

Too often we get called to rescue a local business suffering some sort of technology crisis (note: these are not clients, just businesses in the area having a really bad day). Typically, we find there is a really old piece of hardware that gave out, like a switch or firewall or old phone PBX system, or server. We’ve even seen battery backup systems bring down an entire business – which is nuts! Those are supposed to keep your business functional in a crisis, not cause the crisis!

We call these aging hardware situations “sleeping dogs”— they’re just lying around, being ignored. And then one day they wake up in very a grumpy mood and shut down your entire business for days. What we also find out is in every single one of these situations, the leaders of the company were AWARE they needed to do something about it before it failed.

We’ve been called in to rescue businesses that were crippled by a failed switch (cost about $800 for replacement hardware). We’ve seen a 40-person law firm brought to its knees by a failed small server (cost about $1500). We’ve seen a communications firm unable to communicate because their phone system was so old that employees called it Radar O’Reilly from the old M*A*S*H show, and when it failed it brought down the entire network. A VoIP replacement cost them just a few hundred dollars a month, configured and up and running in 24 hours.

Spending a few hundred to even a few thousand dollars to replace your sleeping technology “dogs” will save you tens of thousands of dollars in crisis costs, not to mention save your firm’s reputation with clients and employees.

Don’t let your sleeping technology “dogs” lie around, waiting to cause trouble. Be sure your IT firm/staff are fully aware of your aging technology and has a plan to reduce your risk(s).

Groff NetWorks meets with our clients regularly to review the ever-changing list of things that are good (green), things that are concerning (orange) and things that are serious risks (red). Clients get to decide what to do and when.

If you are worried on what trouble your sleeping technology “dogs” could cause, give us a call for a free consultation. We talk to dozens of firms each year who aren’t clients, just to help them make better technology decisions. We’re always here to help.

Hope you’re not kept awake worrying about your technology dogs. As for me… well, a picture is worth a thousa…zzzz.