We live in a world built on technology in our personal lives and in our businesses. Just about every company is completely reliant on its computer network and infrastructure. These days, there is almost nothing that done without a computer.

 

Consider this: you closely monitor your cash flow and inventory to keep your company on track to meets its goals. You use various computer software and solutions to do these calculations.

 

You service your clients through computers using software. These computers may be servers, desktop workstations, or mobile devices. What if these devices and the networks that link them together go down? What would your clients do if you cannot do business with them because your computers are down?

 

Mot clients would go to one of your competitors that can respond quickly to their needs.  They will not care or be understanding that your company was offline. Any interruption in your computer systems will cost your business sales and customers.

 

This is why your business needs information technology support.

 

Your IT staff must handle things such as administering multiple technologies, keeping applications up to date and available, managing crises when service interruptions occur and managing hardware systems and software components. Your IT team must also design and initiate your key IT initiatives to move your company forward while responding to initiatives requested by your corporate managers and CEOs.

 

Fortunately, your company does not need to handle these tasks in house. You can elicit the aid of an IT support provider.

 

The method of IT support is irrelevant if the service provider successfully provides your needs, but your company still needs some kind of IT support. For some companies, that means going with some offshore outlet. Others will need someone a bit closer. Your IT support technician does not have to be on site to service your IT network, and can do a lot of the work remotely. However, offshore providers come with steep language restrictions. While they may speak and understand the same language of your customers and employees, many will find the accents frustrating among other problems. Offshore is cheaper, but it may not be worth the risks. In many cases, onshore IT support will be the preferable option.

 

Most large corporations have their own internal IT teams. While this is a viable option, it is quite expensive. But, if it works for you, there is nothing wrong with it either.

 

Effective IT support needs to be on call on a 24/7 basis. IT disasters can occur at any time anywhere. You can call for an on-site or remote solution, but you need a fast response time. Your IT support provider needs to be ready to repair any problems as soon as possible. In fact, you should have some sort of IT support solution on call long before you need service.

 

Without great IT support, your company’s advanced tools and technologies become useless. While hiring an outside IT support provider will reduce some of your control over your IT processes, your company may benefit from the expertise. This will be especially true for small companies who may only one IT person in house if any. However, if the loss of control does not interfere with your business operations, the benefits will outweigh the disadvantages it may cause.


People call in for IT support for a number of reasons, but they all call for the same symptoms. Their computers stop working. They cannot access mission critical data or application. Websites are coming up with error messages.

 

If these scenarios sound similar, you are not alone. Computers have become intertwined in our daily lives, both in our businesses and our personal lives, to the point that when anything goes wrong, people panic.

 

The following ten items are the most common reasons people call in for IT support. While they may seem like the end of the world to you when they happen, most can be fixed with a single IT support session.

 

1. Slow running computer.

 

When you first start your laptop, workstation, or tablet, you may have noticed how fast it worked. Applications loaded in a flash. Documents print the moment you clicked the print button. Business is good. Then, things start slowing down. You might not notice it right away, but at some point everything slows to a crawl.

 

More programs, more processes, viruses, spam, malware, improper uninstallation or programs, and so many other reasons can cause your computer to slow down. The only solution is to clean it up, clear out some space, and reduce the number of applications running. Ask your IT support technician how you can do this without reducing your productivity.

 

2. Download speeds are excruciating.

 

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may boast about 25mps or higher internet connection speeds, but your staff constantly complains that accessing remote servers are slow. Websites fail to load. Downloading files take forever.

 

The problem may not be the connection. It may be your computers. We can analyze and resolve your problems with either an on-site visit or through remote processes.

 

3. Sudden restarting.

 

Sudden restarts can be devastating. You are working on a project one minute, forgot to save your work, and then your computer restarts, losing all the work you did.

 

If you took some precautions, you work may still be recoverable. Otherwise, you have to restart from scratch yourself.

 

Before calling in for IT support, you should first check to see if your computer is running a scheduled update that you had ignored. If this is the case, all a support technician can do is to help you setup a better update schedule.

 

If your computer is restarting constantly, it could be a virus or adware. Your computer may also be overheating due to too many processes or a faulty fan. In these cases, you need series IT technical support right away.

 

4. Website certificate issues.

 

If people are complaining about certificate issues popping up from trusted websites, their system clocks may be out of whack.

 

Certificate errors reveal themselves as dialog boxes warning that the site you tried to access may have malicious data. Sometimes, you can acknowledge the risk and continue to the website. Other times, you are locked out completely.

 

If this happens suddenly on numerous sites, you need to check the clocks on those systems. Security certificates sync up with your system’s clock and if it doesn’t match, the page might not load.

 

You can check the clock by opening it in the system folder and looking to see if it has the correct date and time (and time zone). If the time changed on you, it could be a sign of a virus, malware, or other issue that requires IT support services sooner rather than later.

 

5. Popup ads all over your desktop.

 

No longer as bad as it was a decade ago, excessive popup ad malware still affects many business computer systems. You may have inadvertently downloaded some adware or something more sinister. Those popup ads are not just annoying. They can be a serious security breach.

 

Don’t wait to repair this issue. Have your computers checked and cleaned as soon as possible.

 

6. Printer is offline.

 

While setting up a printer is almost plug and play today, your printer can still break down just as well. If your printer goes offline often on its own, or your default printer changes, you might have a serious problem on your hands, especially if you do not know what needs fixing. IT support services can check your printer and network for issues and troubleshoot anything they find, getting you back up and printing efficiently in no time.

 

7. Certain programs won’t launch all of a sudden.

 

Every application relies on the computer system’s registry to operate properly. If the registry becomes corrupted, gets damages, or go missing, your applications, even your entire computer, may fail to load.

 

The first immediate test and solution is to just restart the computer. If that does not resolve the problem, you need to call in for IT support to assess the cause and repair the system.

 

8. Wi-Fi connection keeps getting dropped.

 

Your mobiles work fine until you lose the connections to your network. The problem could be with your network infrastructure, your mobile devices, or both. Before you can fix this annoying problem, you need to isolate from where the problem is originating.

 

9. Accidentally deleting files.

 

Deleting important files is not fun. You may not even realize you did it until it is too late. While you should always check your computer’s fail-safe location (your ‘recycle bin’ or ‘trash’), you need IT support services when those fail-safes are not an option.

 

10. USB device won’t work on your computer.

 

If your flash drive, or other USB device, works fine on other computer systems, not on another, there may be a problem with the connection. It also could be a problem with the device itself. IT support services can resolve the problem and determine where the problem actually lies.

 

These are the top ten IT support requests, but they might not be your top ten. If you have called for IT support before, feel free to post your reasons for calling support in the comments bellow.

 

Big data is big, but it may also have a few hurdles to jump even with the hype it gets. While everyone is jumping on the big data bandwagon these days, few are considering the problems that come with it. Big data is only useful if you can find something in it that can enhance your business some benefit in marketing, finance, sales, or other business objectives.

For this reason, Allen Bonde, VP of product marketing and innovation, Actuate, recommends that you start small with big Data in his article in Computer Weekly (http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/Data-Matters/2014/08/start-small-with-big-data.html).

He calls the approach ‘Small Data’, and he defines it as:

So what is 'Small' Data? At its simplest, it's the alerts or answers gleaned from Big Data that are most meaningful to the broadest set of users. Furthermore, as I've defined it before, Small Data involves packaging insights visually so they are accessible, understandable, and actionable for everyday tasks.

Simply, small data means paying closer attention to content that we have already, and analyzing it as much as we can before we move on. This should lead to immediate insights into specific business needs in a friendly, sharable format.

The concept is simple enough that it is spreading like wildfire among the IT community. Many are considering the movement because:

Big Data is tricky, and doing it right may take longer than you can wait. You also need massive amounts of data which most businesses have yet to amass. Small data provide quicker insights that let you personalize your offers to customers.

Small data is the new IT buzzword. It is not a mainstream concept yet, but it definitely growing in popularity in the IT community. Even software vendors such as Adobe, IBM, SAP, and Actuate are promoting the concept in every IT industry forum and blog. It also democratizes the way apps are constructed making it easier to cross-reference your insights against other sets of small data.

We all already have small data in our businesses. Small data analysis uses the same datasets as big data, which is all around us. The amount of personalized data sets available to you is almost uncountable. Small data just says to concentrate on the sets that directly affect your business and ignore the rest. For instance, you can create a complete picture of your customers by analyzing insights from social channels with Web analytics and transactional data.

Small data focuses on the user and not IT techies like big data. We still need a platform that makes analyzing it easy, scalable and visually appealing for non-techies, but, in principle, you do not need a degree in information technology to understand small data.

Bonde reports that these reasons are why any business with a focus on their customers should be using small data instead of the big stuff. It lets you bypass some of big data’s traps to deliver useful, interactive data-driven apps.

While we agree that small data has potential, we have to warn that small data is just a subset of big data and comes with all the same trip wires. Plus, you do not always have control over the amount of data you have. We recommend that you start with the data you already have and expand your data sets as you go. We will also help you determine if your IT infrastructure is ready for the data processing regardless if it is small or big.

As your company becomes more technology driven, your company may need the services of an IT service desk. A service desk is an IT team that understands how your company uses information and ensures that you have the proper technologies to analyze, produce, and distribute your data.

 

The best service desk teams use Information IT infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices to manage and deliver your IT services, and should be your first contact for any and all IT questions.

 

According to ITIL, a service desk is the bridge between users and IT service management. Others define a service desk as the single point of contact between your customers, employees, and business partners.

 

Either way, your service desk exists to optimize your IT services on the behalf of your business and to oversee its functions. It handles all your IT incidents and requests, provides an interface for other ITIL processes, life cycle management, and communication with your customers.

 

Basically, your service desk ensures that your IT network is up and running at all times. It does this by managing and monitoring each of the following layers of your IT service.

 

  • Network Operations: a service desk ensures your IT network infrastructure is optimized to meet your business needs.

  • Systems Operations: your service desk performs all core systems management tasks such as performance monitoring, installation of patches, change management, account management and support for specific platforms, Linux, Unix, etc.

  • Database Operations: Service desks provide database performance and fault monitoring, log reviews, access management, and database software installation

  • Security Management: your service desk performs vulnerability scans, monitors your IPS logs for security breaches and regulation compliance.

 

Service desks provide these services through various types of hardware, software and delivery processes so that they all function seamlessly together. This helps you

 

  • Minimize the business impacts of service failures

  • Proactively manage the use of your IT network and best practices

  • Resolve incidents and requests with minimal delay

  • Facilitate the communication between you and your end users.

 

Service desks also help your company switch between technology-based and process-based IT service management. A service desk lets your company be less dependent on specific technologies letting you connect more easily with business partners and focus more on your core processes without having to deal with technical problems along the way.

 

A good service desk improves your company’s customer satisfaction by allowing you to concentrate on your core business operations, and not on its IT infrastructure. A good service desk will also help your manage your IT infrastructure costs, improve IT operations, and any network disaster that may strike. A good service desk will also keep you informed of the health of your network and solutions to problems that may crop up, and handle all issues as they arise.

 

While service desks are common among large enterprises, business of any size can benefit from them. You also do not have to have one in house. You can use the services of an IT support service provider to act as your company’s service desk. If you feel your company could use a service desk, feel free to contact us right away so we can help you determine your IT support needs.

 

Every business needs some sort of IT support to handle computer problems and other IT disasters. However, not every business needs the same type of support. This is why most IT support providers divided their services into support levels to ensure that their customers get the service they need.

 

The level of IT support your company needs is entirely dependent on your needs and immediate future plans. Most providers divide their services into three different standard tiers or service levels.

 

Tier 1 or Level 1 IT Support

 

The simplest of the three, Tier 1 is designed to handle the most common IT problems and issues faced by most companies before they become bigger messes. These include network failure, computer software or hardware problems, or other simple issues. Your Tier 1 IT support technician will evaluate your network’s symptoms to ensure that the problem was indeed solved and not just a symptom of a larger problem. Most of the time, you will only need this Level 1 IT support for your company.

 

Tier 2 or Level 2 IT support

 

If you need more in-depth support, you might have to go with Tier 2.

 

Tier 2 provides more complex or advanced services such as virus removal, implementing new software solutions, training, or installing brand new racks of servers. These tasks require far more technical knowledge or administration of your computers and network systems than the tasks served by Tier 1. You need Tier 2 to troubleshoot and develop preventive solutions to protect your company from data breaches or theft.

 

While you need Tier 2 service to solve problems and deal with issues that tend to crop up in larger businesses, you usually do not contact a level 2 IT support technician directly. In most cases, your Tier 1 technician calls in for a Tier 2 tech once the Tier 1 tech assesses your situation to be more complex than previously thought.

 

Tier 3 or Level 3 IT support

 

Tier 3 is for major disasters. Tier 3 IT support is the most comprehensive level of IT support that is handled by technicians trained and capable of handling any and all IT support issues that may arise. Level 3 technicians are only bought in when you need high level service such as handling the backend administration of your company’s network or servers. Level 3 technicians may also handle other advanced IT needs such as those offered on lower tiers if you need them as well.

 

Regardless of your situation, you need a Tier 3 IT support technician, you have very serious problems. As with Tier 2, you only get Level 3 when all other options are used up. For instance, you need Tier 3 if you need your entire network replaced due to the complete contamination of a virus or other security breach. Your IT support provider will call in for Tier 3 if you need to evaluate, replace, or restructure your company’s entire IT infrastructure and to decide the best plan for action to deal with any issue that may arise.

 

About EG Technologies

We are a collective of experienced Information Technology professionals with a wide range of technical expertise, who share in the ideal vision and standards of unparalled customer service.  Our practices are geared toward the modernization of current systems for established companies, as well as the creation of completely new systems for startups.  Our goal is to bridge the gap between each aspect of data and information management and production, allowing our clients to concentrate on their business without concern over the data management aspect.

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CA, 93101

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