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A friend was telling me recently about his company’s general frustration with their IT support provider. (I’d love to quote for a better service but they are unfortunately tied in to a long contract with this provider).

Vicious circle

Despite the fact that the support techs involved are hard working, competent guys with great customer service skills, the client company’s productivity was suffering and frustration levels were rising.

The support people did not seem to value the users’ time and thought nothing of spending several hours on a user’s PC working through an issue. Persistence is often laudable but in this case the user was held back from her work for half a day leading to a knock on effect on productivity throughout the company. This kind of cure often causes more pain than the original problem.

Priorities were decided by a combination of who-shouts-loudest and first-in-first-out. The same faults occurred time and again and lessons learned by one tech are not shared with others.

The support techs’ hard work, dedication and technical skill were simply not enough to deliver the productivity gains expectated from the company’s investment in up to date IT systems. Users and IT provider are caught in a vicious circle where the users’ level of frustration continues to escalate.

Structure

In my opinion things will not improve at this company unless some structure is applied to the support effort, such as the ITIL framework for instance. Some may dismiss ITIL as being over-bureaucratic, designed by civil servants with too much time on their hands or assume it is a job creation scheme created by and for the IT industry.

Our own use of ITIL at ISN has provided us with a toolkit of best practice which deliver real benefits which result in happier users long term. Adopting just a few ITIL best-practice approaches would unglue the wheels and increase productivity for my friend’s company and result in bottom line savings.
Just to pluck a few examples out of the air:

• Having senior engineers dedicated to “problem management” would address the underlying causes of common faults and prevent them recurring
• Agreeing a method with management for “incident prioritisation” would reduce impact on the company’s core activities
• Developing a searchable knowledgebase from information logged regarding problem resolution would shorten fix times

The fact is that most office workers can’t get their job done without reliable IT systems. With the pace of modern working life, any hold up wastes time and money and increases stress levels for end user and IT staff alike. Adoption of ITIL does not have to be all-or-nothing; a company can choose the elements that fit its business requirements and culture.

Windows 7 is the latest desktop and laptop operating system out of the Microsoft stable and it’s a thoroughbred from the start. As one of ISN’s desktop specialists, I have been using it for some time now. I like it a lot.

Better Performance

It’s faster than Windows XP and much faster than the ill-fated Vista, due to smaller resident memory requirements. Windows 7 installs far more quickly than either of its predecessors.

• Faster to startup – the record for booting a quad core PC is 19 seconds
• 64 bit version available – meaning your applications could use up to 192GB of memory
• Faster searches – find files and folders faster and more easily than in Vista or XP
• Back compatibility – run older programs in a virtual Windows XP window
• Better power management – longer battery life: some of the latest laptops can run for 6 hours or more.

Windows 7 is capable of running on existing hardware and so the PC you use today will probably be usable for the next few years: all it will need is the new operating system.

New usability features

With new features and improvements under the hood, people will be impressed with the speed and the improved stability, thus reducing the need to call your helpdesk and making it easier to get stuff done.

• New Taskbar – pin common apps to the taskbar; preview open application windows.
• Left/Right alignment – easily use two applications side by side, each occupying half your screen
• Aero Shake – May be a gimmick rather than a feature, but still handy. Grab and shake any application title bar with the mouse and all other windows minimise!

New enterprise capabilities

When used with Windows Server 2008 R2, you will be able to use new features that link with Windows 7 and provide added value to the software.

• DirectAcess – automatic VPN connection
• BranchCache – data replication and sharing
• VPN Reconnect – seamless reconnection when moving between networks (e.g. wi-fi points)

All in all, it should bring an increase in productivity and a reduction of desktop problems, bringing new life to existing hardware.

This involves taking a snapshot image of a whole server (or desktop PC or laptop). If the server fails, the image can be used to recreate it the server on any hardware – doesn’t have to be identical – long as it has enough disk space and memory.

 What results will image backup give you? Read more »

There’s plenty of free software around but these three are really worth taking a look at. They all save a load of time or money and are actually fun to use. Read more »

Microsoft Windows XP and Vista have an “offline folders” facility which allows you to take copies of files away from the office network on your laptop so that you can work with them on the move. All great in theory but we advise you to steer clear.
Read more »