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May 2009 News Letter
 
Are you running your business from a workstation that is called a "server"? Here is a list of pros and cons as to why you should have a computer that is built to be a server and why you should have an IT professional install and manage it.
 
If you are a small business owner and don't think that you are big enough to have a server, think again. Small businesses have the same needs as large businesses, if not more. Small businesses more often than not run on a slimmed down more efficient staff. A server will help make a small business run faster and more efficient.  Examples of this are: small businesses can access information quickly and easily, be able to access company documents that have the latest logo on it, be able to easily find the latest client contracts, and the accounting department's information is more to be secure.  Most owners don't think about the "soft" advantages of a server but they think of it as an expensive piece of hardware. 

 
One "soft" advantage is increasing your staff's productive time by finding documents in a centrally organized folder structure. So many companies have duplicate documents on each desktop and people spend hours trying to find the updated client contract to send out. If your information is in a company folder structure documents can be found in seconds. Another "soft" cost is having the user management centrally controlled from the server. Having a pier to pier network is called a distributed managed system and allows for increased time to manage it every time an employee changes seats or the employee changes.
 
Beyond the "soft" costs there are some other major reasons to have a server. The data can be centrally backed up and restored. A real server has several hard drives in a RAID, so if a server hard drive crashes the server does not go down. You can replace a bad drive and rebuild it dynamically with the server up... You can get a server with redundant power supplies, so if one power supply fails the other will take over automatically. Servers can also connect to more than 10 workstations, which is the limit for windows XP and Vista.
 
There is an investment in some time and money to get a network properly setup but you will save in the long run in with having your business run more efficiently and more importantly you will be able to recover from a disaster.
 
As always, don't hesitate to contact the LBT staff if you have any questions 
 
Have a great day -