Outdated technology can work just fine, but from an IT security perspective, there’s no worse scenario than an aging server, router and firewall equipment. Why? Once these pieces of equipment reach a certain age, they’re not only no longer covered by warranty, but they may not support new updates and are usually vulnerable to infiltration. Not sure if your technology is outdated or not? Here are some signs:
- It crashes.
Nothing better than a little server outage to bring your day to a screeching halt. But if you’re experiencing frequent outages and network downtime because of your server, it’s long past time to replace it. This is the type of reactive approach we try to avoid by making sure our client’s equipment is always in warranty (which typically means replaced at least every 5 years). The same is true for your router, which will impact how it delivers the speed of your connections. - Your employees complain about it.
The employee are typically the last people to see when a piece of technology needs to be replaced. If it’s impacting the user level that means it’s going down a lot, or it’s slowing down your network access significantly. When you schedule out and plan for regular refreshes, you don’t have to worry about your employees being slowed down by archaic equipment - The manufacture dates are more than 5 years old.
The most simple way to check if your technology equipment is outdated is to check the manufacture date on them. Was it more than 5 years ago? Or, even scarier, a decade ago? It’s absolutely time to get that equipment changed out. - You’re getting viruses.
When aging routers, firewalls and servers are still in play in a business, they’re sometimes running an old operating system. Why? Because the minimum hardware requirements for new software are going to be more demanding. This means that you often can’t update to a new server operating system and yours might reach end of life. When this happens Microsoft stops updating the system and you’re immediately open to hackers and viruses. Regular replacement and operating system upgrades ensure that you can get these patches and updates and avoid network intrusion at this level. - It’s really, really slow.
The step before hardware crashing is a really slow piece of equipment. You can hear it chugging along as it attempts to access the information that your users need. As new programs and significant amounts of data are added to any network, your server should be able to keep up. If you notice that network access is slowing down, it’s likely far past time to replace your server.
9 out of 10 consumers would prefer to take their business elsewhere rather than work with a company that uses outdated technology. If you’re still not refreshing your server, firewall, router, workstations and other equipment regularly, it’s time to get more proactive about your technology updates. The great thing about updating your technology on a predictable schedule is that you can avoid unforeseen capital expenditures, keep your employees productive and avoid losing any data or risking a huge lawsuit because you compromised your customer data.
I know. It can be scary to consider what sort of investment awaits after neglecting your technology for so long, but with the right partner you can sort through it.
You might also like
