Warning signs of IT disasters are alerts the staff should pay attention to, as they anticipate problems and avoid headaches.
If some signs of system malfunction go unnoticed by the IT team or are seen as acceptable faults with no detailed analysis of the situation, you may end up in a snowball of bugs and fragilities.
This behavior can lead to a number of negative consequences, such as loss of relevant data and information that ensure the authenticity and criticality of demand-based analyses.
Therefore, paying attention to these warning signs of the IT system can mitigate the damage caused by an IT disaster.
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What is an IT disaster?
Information Technology (IT) refers to solutions and actions based on the information obtained through computer resources.
This information is stored, protected, analyzed, and managed by an IT system, which, in general, is comprised of technology items such as hardware and software.
On the other hand, an IT disaster refers to the interruption of any of the processes mentioned above, which directly affects the analysis and interpretation of data that are used to determine the provision of goods for your business.
These disasters can occur as a result of cyberattacks, computer or server faults, and use of technologies without proper knowledge, representing a failure caused by human operation.
However, if you are worried that IT disasters can happen to your business, you can relax! An IT disaster will never happen overnight.
It shows some signs and if you know how to interpret them, you’ll have a great chance of mitigating or even avoiding it in your system.
7 warning signs of IT disasters
A disaster never happens suddenly; the system displays some warnings indicating that something is not working properly.
Now you’ll understand some warning signs that your system may present and how you can identify and interpret them!
#1 Change in user behavior
You’ve probably received complaints about a specific item or operation of your system or equipment, and then noticed a reduction in these requests.
Your first reaction is to believe the problem has been resolved and the user processes are running normally, without forcing you to make major changes.
The truth is that your customer got tired of asking for your support to resolve the same problem and perhaps must have looked for a solution without your help, which can often lead to even more serious problems, including security issues.
#2 Repeated errors and complaints
Your customer always reports the same problem. The IT team has to repair the same error recently experienced by another customer.
This situation indicates the system is not running appropriately and that it’s a recurrent issue.
Therefore, it is important to thoroughly investigate the root cause of these situations with different users to prevent your customers from stopping using your technical service.
Having an IT management system allows you to classify errors as it identifies the most frequent problems affecting the IT department. Besides, it will help you find more effective solutions for these cases.
#3 Reduced number of suggested improvements
Your users should feel they’re building the solution together with your company. Otherwise, they will stop suggesting improvements – this behavior can happen for different reasons, such as your team’s failure to respond or implement recurrent requests from users.
If it has already happened to your business, be careful! Review what your customers are asking you and make every effort to implement what they want.
This way, you can better engage with users, ensuring a process of continuous improvement, which is critical to the quality of services provided by your department.
#4 Demands not fulfilled by systems
Do you feel that your user needs are no longer fulfilled by the IT system? This is a sign of outdated product that fails to deliver the best solution to users.
Besides, your company doesn’t have adequate devices that meet the company’s needs, which means a technology gap.
If it happens, it’s important to make adjustments and update systems and devices. In this case, an asset inventory system is essential.
Also, the IT system may be overloaded with useless data that don’t meet the demands of your business. These problems can be avoided with an intelligent management of your IT system.
#5 Information overload in publishing processes
There’s no doubt that it’s very important to fulfill all demands. But be careful with your publishing process, because too many files processed in a sequence can lead to an overloaded server.
Create a routine with specific days and times for this task. This way you can reduce the chances of server unavailability.
#6 Small recurrent security problems
You may have already received a warning signal on your control panel indicating a failure in the security system, but you didn’t pay much attention because you thought it could be a one-and-only situation. If you’ve ever experienced that situation, be careful!
System security problems indicate that your IT system is vulnerable or data processing is slow, which could lead to a server collapse.
Also, system overload can facilitate the entry of low and high complexity viruses, compromising the security of the entire infrastructure.
In these cases, a vulnerability management system is a great ally for your business, as the identification of risks that may affect your system will help you handle different unforeseen events.
#7 Overwork of IT staff
Is your IT team always busy, even after consecutive hours of work? It could indicate your team is overloaded, dedicating so much effort, but generating low productivity and results that are not significant and assertive.
If you identify this behavior in your team, take a step back to understand what measures should be taken or what structures should be changed.
Using methodologies such as the SWOT analysis can help you in this process of root cause analysis of the problems in your system, guiding the team to obtain better and detailed answers.
What to do in case of a warning sign of IT disaster
If you’ve identified a warning sign in your IT system and you’ve tried to mitigate the impact of the problem to avoid a collapse, but it wasn’t enough, don’t worry. As mentioned above, we can’t prevent all issues. If the system failed despite all preventive measures, there are some things you can do. See below:
Talk to the IT team
The first step – and one of the most important actions – is to maintain good communication with your IT team, as they can help you find solutions for difficult problems in IT.
Also, frank and frequent communication allows you to begin a culture of continuous improvement, reducing the risk of disasters.
Analyze performance indicators
It’s very important to evaluate your IT team performance indicators, because they clearly show the status of your processes and deliveries. They also allow you to identify the aspects requiring more attention, thus preventing IT disasters.
Restructure your actions and the responsibilities of every member of the team
When an IT disaster happens, your team can’t perform the usual daily processes.
Have a meeting with your IT team to understand the root cause of the problem in the IT system, and review procedures, methodologies, and even the roles of every member of the team.
Well-defined roles and deadlines may not prevent new disasters, but will certainly contribute to a fast recovery.
Review your recovery plan
The IT disaster recovery plan is designed to restore the system after system damage or sudden interruptions that cause data collection failure.
System recovery is based on data duplicated from the IT system backup.
In these cases, a cloud service is recommended to support this process, allocating the information to external servers.
How to prevent IT disasters
Unfortunately, no method can ensure 100% efficiency in IT disaster prevention, as technology will always present failures.
However, some measures will significantly help you prevent or mitigate the impact of IT disasters on your business! See below:
Create an incident database
A database with prior incidents will provide knowledge to guide future actions and will show solutions already adopted to help you with new events.
Monitor IT services
IT service monitoring can be essential to avoid a disaster because, when system processes are frequently analyzed, the time of inoperable server will be much shorter, as you understand the ideal scenario for that project.
Automate processes
As mentioned above, one of the causes of IT disasters is inadequate human operation of devices and machines.
Human beings are more vulnerable to errors than machines because the equipment used in data processing is submitted to several tests before they come into operation, something that cannot be done with human action.
Therefore, process automation can be a key tool to help you avoid this type of problem in your business! Learn more about this tool with the Milvus automation platform!
Conclusion
Identifying warning signs of IT disasters in your business will make a big difference, as it ensures the safe delivery of information to users, increasing adherence and ensuring high-quality data analyses.
Use the suggestions provided in this article to make your IT system management more profitable and free of risks.
Milvus is an IT management system that optimizes processes of companies, departments or independent IT professionals, increasing their productivity and support efficiency. Take a free trial or request a demo to try all functionalities of the Milvus platform!
