Growing and scaling your business responsively requires you to consider your IT systems. As your company grows, your IT systems must also grow to accommodate and respond to performance and processing demands. They must also cope with the requirement for increased efficiency and the need to handle a larger number of users.
Ensuring your IT systems align with these demands can be challenging. As you complete the process, you can gain plenty of benefits from your technology, but it is important to consider cost-effectiveness and agility. What is the best way to scale IT systems with these factors in mind? Continue reading to learn why systems scalability is important and how IT services can help.
Why is Scalability in IT Systems Crucial for Your Business?
Scalability in IT systems is crucial for your business, giving you multiple advantages. Not only can scaling your systems help you handle greater volumes of data, but it also contributes to enhanced performance and streamlines your business processes.
Scaling your systems helps you and your business stay prepared for the heavier IT use of a growing company. System crashes, vulnerabilities in terms of security, and slower, less efficient response times are just a few of the issues you may solve as a result.
How to Expand IT Infrastructure and Services as Your Business Grows
You can expand and optimize IT infrastructure and services as your business grows in a few simple ways. In this section, we have gathered multiple critical approaches and top tips that acknowledge cost-effectiveness and agility, ensuring your system is aligned with your business.
Complete an Infrastructure Assessment
An infrastructure assessment is key to knowing how to improve your systems. You’ll need to look for potential issues or areas that should be upgraded and understand your business needs. A few examples of areas you might consider and actions to take include the following:
- Check the network capacity: With greater network use comes a more sluggish level of connectivity. It’s important to check the router in this case. You may check its speed and reliability with a speed test, checking the upload and download speed. Ensure you review the network’s traffic using tools such as SolarWinds or Wireshark.
- Review your server infrastructure: Review your server load with processor, CPU, and memory hardware metrics. You can check the CPU performance with Activity Monitor or Task Manager charts and look for patterns. Consider whether these will align with the potential workload your business expects as it scales.
- Look closely at security solutions: Take a close look at the permissions, check for potential updates, and look for data breaches. You can perform these checks by frequently reviewing your system logs and looking for activity that is out of the ordinary. Once you’ve checked, you will know whether the security solutions also need to scale.
Invest in Scalable IT Solutions
Using scalable IT solutions, you will integrate a cost-effective solution for the future. The responsive IT infrastructure you choose may include the following examples:
- Cloud services: You may consider cost-effective cloud systems like Microsoft Azure when you scale a small business. This software as a service includes virtual machines, databases, and additional storage, which assist with scaling up without being concerned about space shortages, security issues, or demanding workloads.
- Secure network solutions: Some secure network solutions include firewalls and VPNs as you scale your business. Firewalls are devices for network security enhancements, and VPNs are tools that enhance the security of a network with encryption. As well as the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation firewall, the Cisco ASA firewall, the OpenVPN, and the Cisco AnyConnect VPN, many options are suited to scaling IT systems.
- Virtualization options: Other solutions to scale your IT systems include virtualization options. This solution involves making several instances of servers. For example, you’ll be able to create instances of storage or networks with this method. You can complete the virtualization process by choosing the right platform, considering the number of virtual machines, configuring the settings, and creating the virtual machines with the virtualization software.
Consider Managed IT Services
You may also consider using a managed IT support service company to assist you. Not only do managed IT services understand your business, but they will help you with business continuity and enhancement despite changes in your system. These services can help small and medium-sized companies in multiple ways:
- Management of your infrastructure: Many companies, such as Tech Masters, can assist you when you expand the infrastructure. The infrastructure management may involve setting up servers. It can also include managing networks on your behalf or handling storage systems. These solutions help handle the increasing demands on your IT systems.
- Implementation of data security solutions: Managed IT services will help you handle increased security risks. It won’t matter if you have a greater number of system users. Despite scaling your business, these risks will be lower. The process may involve installing new firewalls for you. Or, it could involve helping you install VPNs to encrypt your network. These companies can create an in-depth plan to implement the required security measures to match your business needs.
- Support for applications and updates: With managed IT services, you can hand the software updates to the experts. These professionals will also ensure the applications function optimally and work as expected, even as your business grows.
Select Tech Masters to Help You Scale Your IT Infrastructure
The best IT professionals will understand your business and know how to ensure you remain competitive when you scale your IT systems. Our experts at Tech Masters are experienced and ready with the advice you need to scale effectively.
From audits and software implementation to network assessments and security measures, our strategies can help you as your business grows. Request a consultation with us today. Get tailored solutions to help your business succeed with optimal IT systems.
