If you’re putting off upgrading old or outdated equipment, chances are it’s because you’re worried about the cost, the inconvenience, and there’s that tiny voice in your head saying ‘surely, this will do for a bit longer?’
While these are very normal responses, they wouldn’t serve you very well if your car needed an MOT or was running low on oil. And why’s that? Because the law tells you to get an MOT to save you making a (bad) decision, and no oil, well, you know exactly how that turns out.
But, IT, for all its advances and ubiquity, is still a relatively new industry, and some of us are only just realising that – like everything else in life from plants and pets to cars and houses, our IT systems also require maintenance and care.
The difference with IT is that you can’t always see it physically falling apart. You don’t know that the program that’s usually a bit slow to load is actually mere weeks away from conking out and you might even be comfortable crossing that bridge when you come to it.
But imagine for a second that you could see the peeling wallpaper and cracks in the ceiling of your IT operations. If you could, you wouldn’t take unnecessary risks, would you?
That’s why, when it comes to IT, we need to focus less on the price of the upgrade, and more on the cost to you and your business if you don’t invest when you need to.
Say your server broke down right now, how much would it cost you to fix? How much data would you lose? How long would it take before your staff could get back to work? How many hours will you have lost by paying them for dead time?
Perhaps add up the cost of one day of lost work and then weigh it up against the price of all the regular upgrades that will keep things ticking over, while giving you peace of mind. You’ll probably (definitely) find it’s far more than the cost of a new server. When it comes to IT equipment, there’s no better insurance than sensible investment.
*We wrote this article a few years ago when we were still recommending regular server upgrades. Now, with our Cloud partners Microsoft Azure, we recommend a full cloud migration. Head to our Cloud page for more details. Furthermore, if you would like to discuss an overhaul of your complete IT infrastructure, we suggest booking a meeting with one of our Virtual Directors.