Since preventative maintenance has three elements, you will need to have a plan to
implement all three. The order, however, is not too important and which is the most
urgent for your school situation will depend on a number of factors including:
- current budget set aside for acquiring capital equipment
- age and state of the network infrastructure
- level of training and expertise of technical staff.
Start with design if:
- you are planning a new network or a major upgrade to an existing network
- you have particular concerns over network security
- the school does not already have network use policies in place.
Start with maintenance if:
- network performance is poor
- there is a higher-than-usual failure rate for network devices
- network equipment is old or of poor quality.
Start with the preparation if:
- data is not currently backed up regularly
- the network is not clearly and fully documented
- responsibilities in the event of a failure are not clear.
