Often I see firms invest in a good, well designed network and within 12 to 18 months, they’re experiencing the same poor performance and annoying problems they were before they invested all that money. Why? Most of the time it is because they didn’t invest in maintaining their network. I often use the analogy of changing the oil in your car. You can’t see the effects the new oil and filter has on your car right away, but over time it improves the performance and longevity of the vehicle. Investing in network maintenance is a similar investment. The truth is, a well maintained network performs better, lasts longer, and costs less than networks that aren’t maintained regularly. Oddly enough I find many firms today (if not most firms) are either rejecting this notion in principle or simply deciding to ignore it.
Granted, there is a point of no return where network maintenance becomes a financial black hole, but most firms are not near this point – quite the contrary, in fact. Yet even if a firm accepts the idea that network maintenance is a good idea, they don’t often know what can they expect to get from their investment. Furthermore, they don’t know how to determine the right amount of maintenance for their environment? And when does network maintenance actually become a financial black hole? These are some of the issues I see firms often struggle with. As such, I thought it may be helpful to shed some light on the pros, cons, and ultimately the truth (and value) of investing in network maintenance.
The first thing that is important to understand is what network maintenance actually is. Network maintenance can loosely be defined as “the upkeep of your network through regular, dedicated service.” Often, network maintenance includes patching servers and workstations, downloading virus and sypware updates, reviewing and addressing system performance, and “tweaking” the system to ensure optimal performance. Sometimes this includes fixing some minor problems on a particular part of the network, but anything that adds or replaces functionality really falls outside the realm of maintenance.
Of course, understanding what constitutes network maintenance is only helpful for the purpose of setting a framework for this article. It is far more important to understand the value network maintenance provides your firm. Ultimately, the greatest value any network service could provide would be to increase your firm’s profitability. When it comes to networks and technology, however, increased profitability can be hard to measure. For the most part I believe good network maintenance should equate to three areas of improvement on your network:
- Reduced network downtime (greater availability)
- Better network performance
- Longer life of your network equipment.
Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy to measure the positive financial effects these have on your firm. The good news is, however, that it probably isn’t necessary to be precise in your measurements.
There are some simple metrics that can help you determine the level of maintenance that will give you the biggest bang for your buck. Take downtime, for example. Because a firm’s productivity is so closely tied to their network, even an hour of downtime can be extremely costly. In light of this fact most firms would probably say that they simply can’t have downtime. Although a “no downtime” scenario is potentially attainable, it isn’t likely to translate well into firm profitability. The key is to measure your firm’s downtime and estimate approximately how much it costs you and then determine your tolerance for it based on a simple cost analysis.
Figuring out the cost of network downtime is reasonably easy and doesn’t need to be calculated to the penny. Just take the average salary and benefits of your staff per hour and multiply it by the number of staff members. Then add that number to the “opportunity cost” of one hour of lost time (what you could have billed had the network not been down). The formula looks like this:
(Ave. per hour Salary X #of employees) + (Ave. per hour bill rate X # of billable staff)
The number you come up with will probably be pretty significant even for just an hour of downtime. Although just an estimate, this number should help give you a basis for determining your tolerance for downtime. Now that we have a “cost” estimate of network downtime it is important to estimate the other end of the equation: the financial benefits of network availability as a result of network maintenance. Unfortunately, this is a bit more difficult to estimate initially because it varies significantly for each firm depending on the hardware and software, the age of the equipment, and the skill of the firm or individual performing the maintenance. Because of all the variables involved, most firms measure this on an ongoing basis after they’ve employed a network maintenance program.
So without knowing how network availability is improved from employing a network maintenance program how do you determine how much maintenance you initially need? Firms that have an internal IT department have it easy. They should have the benefits of network maintenance estimated and their maintenance program should be routine, consistent, and scheduled. For firms that work with outside vendors it can work the same way, but often these firms don’t have performance, availability, or equipment longevity data to work with. In these cases it comes down to taking an educated guess – at least to start with. The trick is to balance maintenance costs with the impact they have on network performance, network availability, and equipment longevity and then relate that to profit. As a rule, I see most begin their maintenance program according to the number of systems they have.
1 to 5 systems: 1 to 2 hrs per month
6 to 10 systems: 2 to 4 hrs per month
11 to 25 systems: 4 to 6 hrs per month
26 to 50 systems: 6 to 8 hrs per month
50+ systems: 8 to 10 hrs per month
Certainly, this is little more than a general guide to help you find a starting point, but it is important that you begin measuring the effects network maintenance has on your network downtime, network performance, and the life of your equipment so you will have some “harder” numbers to work with in the future. Once gathered, you can more accurately determine the amount of maintenance your network needs. Keep in mind that traditionally, newer networks tend to need less maintenance while older networks often require more.
You can also use the same type of simple metrics for measuring the other two benefits of network maintenance: longer equipment life and better performance. Although the formulas might differ, the principals remain the same. Estimate costs, estimate benefits, measure the results. If your maintenance costs are less than the benefits they provide your firm, you’re on the right track.
Really, once you consider all the costs associated with a poorly performing network that experiences downtime (not to mention the cost of a shortened life-cycle for your network equipment), the decision to employ a network maintenance program is an easy one to make. Consequently, most firms eventually employ some type of maintenance program. Again, the goal is clear - make your firm more profitable. With the absolute dependency firms have on their network, there is no doubt that properly maintaining your network is an essential component of profitability. The only question that remains then, is how much maintenance does your network need? Take a few minutes and estimate the costs and benefits of a maintenance program. I think you’ll find it a good investment of your time.
Obviously, the difficult question becomes how much maintenance do you need? Firms that have an internal IT department have it easy – maintenance should be routine, consistent, and scheduled – period. For firms that work with outside vendors, however, it comes down to a matter of risk and cost. More maintenance generally equates to a lower risk of encountering performance or other problems (viruses, spyware, security & performance issues, etc.). Of course, more maintenance can cost more in the short run. The trick is to balance maintenance costs with the impact they have on network performance, network availability, and equipment longevity.
This is just a paragraph I liked, but decided not to use in the article: For the purpose of this article let’s define “downtime” as the time when the entire network is down during working hours. This is a very loose definition and not completely accurate, but again, the purpose is to utilize some simple, reasonably accurate metrics that will help you determine the level of maintenance your network needs.
Navigating through the benefits of these can be tricky if you don’t have a good handle on how much these are costing you in the first place.
Calculating the extended the life of your network equipment is somewhat easier to calculate than downtime because there are “hard” costs involved, but again, it isn’t necessary to be accurate to the penny. Estimating the value of network maintenance as it relates to increased performance is probably the most difficult, but you can use a percentage of labor costs similar to the ones used in the “downtime” example above (i.e. poor performance = 10% of downtime). Begin by estimating the costs your firm incurs for poor performance and then relate that to the benefits (greater performance) network maintenance will provide your firm. When all is said and done, employing a schedule of maintenance for your network becomes an easy decision to make.
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