Organisational System Maintenance

It is important to highlight the risks that IT support employees face when it comes performing computer maintenance tasks. Most organisations will be threatened with these risks and it can cost organisations time and money. It is important for the Bolton IT Support Services (BITSS) to be aware of these risks so they can put prevention procedures in place to keep future risks down to a minimum.

This can be done by performing risk reduction measures, assessing common errors that are likely to occur for quick fix methods and then using trend analyses to predict and determine future maintenance risks, also by completing risk assessments of the risks that the BITSS encounter, this will help both the employees and students of Bolton College when computers need maintaining or upgrading.

Potential loss of service

When performing computer maintenance, it’s going to take time to update, small to medium applications can take on average between five to fifteen minutes but sometimes bigger software applications such as game/video editing software and operating systems can take over an hour. While the systems are upgrading, it will mean the system itself will be completely out of use which will cause issues if a student needs to use it for their work. It is important to schedule updates and upgrades to systems out of classroom hours so that classes are not waiting for the upgrade to complete to use the system.

It’s important for Bolton College to consider that if the system is unavailable and the system is for business aspects, e.g. enrolment admin systems, sales, apprenticeships, then it could cause the Bolton College to lose customers and money to competing organisations such as other colleges losing Bolton college both business and money, it’s important to make sure that important updates are done at low traffic times so it doesn’t interfere with business.

Incompatibility issues   

If there is a new piece of software or an upgrade is required, then IT support technicians can always stumble across incompatibility issues. There could be multiple workstation systems that are five to ten years old. It is crucial to check the systems specifications to make sure they can handle the upgrades or it will cost Bolton College frustration and money.

It is important for the BITSS to always keep on track of incompatibility issues. As it’s an educational organisation, different workstation systems are going to require different hardware requirements for different software programs and uses. Example, graphic design and animation rooms would require up to iMac systems with at least mid-range to high-range graphic/video cards and memory, where-as some basic lessons rooms like maths and English may require cheaper standard computing systems.

If Bolton College ever wanted to change the systems operating systems, then some programs may not be compatible and certain drivers would need to be also installed or certain programs and data may become corrupted. An example would be changing from Windows to Linux. This can cause more risks for the BITSS so they must plan to make sure that the upgrades are the best way forward for Bolton College and it doesn’t cause more issues.

Risk reduction measures

Risk reduction measures are taken to reduce risks when upgrading software or performing computer maintenance. These can be done by doing risk assessments, setting back up restore points before upgrading, and choosing appropriate times to perform computer maintenance these are common procedures that the BITSS should take to ensure that there is no data lost whenever maintaining computer systems.

§  Backups

A backup is to clone all the data that is one a system, backing up the data in case the original data ever corrupts. By backing up the systems that require upgrades or computer maintenance before performing the scheduled task the BITSS don’t have to worry about losing any data if there ever was a disaster that corrupted any type of data.

§  Choosing appropriate low risk time for installation

Installing and upgrading software at low risk times e.g. overnight, out of work hours, this will avoid system maintenance affecting work of employees and students of Bolton College. This may require the BITSS to work overtime but they can also complete their maintenance tasks without disturbances or interruptions.