10 questions to your full-time system administrator

Which will help you assess and influence the state of your organization’s IT infrastructure

Working with a system administrator or IT director (hereinafter referred to as “IT specialist”) in small and medium businesses is usually built on the basis of subjective assessments: if everything works “well”, then the expert is “good” and if “always breaks” - the "bad." This approach to evaluating the results of a system administrator or IT director has the right to life, but in my practice I encountered situations when a “good” IT specialist “suddenly” brought the company to a week of downtime and loss of business information, and when “bad” IT specialist heroically tried to correct the tragic legacy of the previous "good" administrator.



The eternal headache of the company's management: how to organize, monitor and evaluate the work of the IT service, not understanding anything in the subject area? Very general advice is to seek help from outside consultants. But there are a number of simple questions that allow us to, if not accurately assess, then at least influence the state of affairs in the IT infrastructure.

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The first question that I advise you to ask your CIO or system administrator when another unforeseen situation happens:

1. What can I do to ensure that this does not happen again?

Yes, exactly: “how can I help”, and not “when will this mess finally stop?”. Be that as it may, you, unlike your IT specialist, can solve any problems in IT: you can send a system administrator to train or hire someone else, invite external consultants, and even buy new equipment, and your IT specialist can do only what he has enough competence for.



Asking the question “how can I help?”, You are forcing your IT specialist to think in the right direction: instead of standing in front of you to explain the explanations that are clear only to him, he will start thinking about how to really do this did not repeat?



Variations of answers to your question can be different: starting from “we need to buy another incomprehensible piece of iron (incomprehensible for you)” or “hire / invite experts who are knowledgeable in the subject area” to “give me 2-3 weeks and I will do so that it does not happen again. " The answer “nothing can be done about it” is not the answer: even the most complex IT problems can be solved, if not by technical, then by organizational methods.



The question of the optimality of the chosen solution and its architectural correctness for you, of course, will remain behind the scenes. The main thing that you can understand by the results of communication and further implementation is whether what your IT specialist offers or not.

The following questions should be:

2. What other problems do we have in IT?

The problem is the cause of repeated failures. Computers are regularly infected with viruses, the server constantly hangs, the Internet or mail often do not work. What causes all these troubles? Are these all some kind of randomness or are there some patterns that we can influence? Do we have any unresolved problems, because of which we constantly lose precious working minutes (and even hours)? And again: “how can I help in solving these problems?”.

3. How are backup copies of our data made? What can we lose in case of failure?

Information is the most important resource of any business. You, your employees collect, save and work daily with it using IT systems. But information can be lost: accidentally, or as a result of a malfunction on the equipment or some force majeure circumstances (for example, as a result of a fire in the server room). The only thing that can protect you in such cases is backups.



Most likely, backup copies in your company are somehow made. Your task is to make sure once again that in the case of even the most catastrophic situations, you still have more or less relevant data, and that if the error in the data is not detected immediately (and, for example, about 2 weeks later), the information can still be restore.

4. How long will it take to restore work in case of equipment failure?

If something can break, it will break one day. And it is very unpleasant when the failure of one device worth a couple of thousand rubles blocks the work of the company for several hours or even days. Does your system administrator understand what he will do if the user's computer breaks down, or the server or some other equipment? How long will it take to recover? What can you do now to reduce downtime if something breaks one day?

5. Do we have enough system performance? How much equipment is time to replace?

Is there now something that limits the speed of our employees with computer systems? Can we face any difficulties in the work in the coming year? In general, how much equipment do we need to upgrade so that employees do not experience any inconvenience?



By and large, you ask your system administrator to tell you how much investment in equipment is necessary for the normal operation of your company in the coming year (as estimated by your system administrator). This will allow you to pre-pledge this money in the budget so that they are not a "pleasant surprise."

6. When was the last time we updated software on servers and workstations? Do all computers have updated anti-virus software?

Software updates are one of the most important IT service processes, as well as control over the operation of anti-virus systems. For a system administrator who can fully cope with his duties, it should be easy to answer the question when he last updated the software and checked the work of anti-virus applications on workstations.

Not so important how often he does it (once every couple of months is enough). It is important whether he does it in principle or not.

7. How can I find out what data the employee has access to? How long does it take to block access to this employee?

This is an amateur question, but if the topic of information security and data security is not alien to you, then the system administrator should always have information on what access rights and what employees have, as well as the ability to quickly restrict this access.

8. Are our running costs adequate? When was the last time we checked the cost of goods and services purchased by us?

It is not uncommon for companies to work on Internet channels that are connected at a rate of ten years ago (and corresponding speeds), when a printer bought by the general director for opening an office eats cartridges a month for a larger amount than the new and more modern printer costs, when “the best 5 years ago, the equipment supplier has long been no longer offering the best prices. In such conditions, your IT infrastructure is transformed from a convenient tool for doing business into a money vacuum cleaner. Control your expenses.

9. Is there any IT documentation that I can share with other IT professionals?

Transparency is a guarantee of high-quality and efficient work of any division of the company. For the IT department, transparency is the availability of documentation on the enterprise IT systems. Having such documentation allows you to easily (and often even free of charge) involve external experts to assess the quality of your IT infrastructure and the appropriateness of your decisions.

10. Is there anything else that can improve the efficiency of our company?

Often, a system administrator or IT director lives on the principle of “initiative is punishable” and supports the company's infrastructure as it has worked for it for years, fearing that innovations will result in sleepless nights and additional problems for it. But if some technology can improve the efficiency of doing business in your company, but you are not using it yet, then most likely this technology works against you on the side of your competitor.

As an afterword

Corporate IT infrastructure and its IT department - it is always a business investment in improving the ease, convenience and efficiency of employees. But, unlike in the world of finance, there are no disruptive technologies in investing in corporate IT infrastructure and our own IT department, which allow us to lift a company over competitors, there are no blue chips that provide predictable quality results. Possible losses, in contrast to the world of finance, are not limited only to the size of the invested funds - both the information accumulated by the company and its reputation in the market stand at risk. At the same time, there are no sacramental knowledge in the issues of building corporate IT infrastructure, organization of maintenance and service processes - all possible options have long been written and repeatedly discussed - there is simply knowledge and ignorance, skill and inability. Corporate IT infrastructure can not be built better than anyone else - it can be built as it should or not as it should. IT infrastructure maintenance cannot be done better than ever: it can either cost adequate money (in terms of price / quality ratio), or be inadequate in cost.



The questions listed above will certainly allow you to influence the state of affairs in your IT department and IT infrastructure, but in order to understand that your IT infrastructure is done right and costs you at an adequate price, you need to hire competent external consultants and auditors.



Ivan Kormachev

Company "IT Department"

www.depit.ru