In preventative maintenance we explained the importance of, as far as possible,
preventing the components on your network from failing; to minimise the number of
incidents reported; and to improve the reliability and availability of ICT to users in
the school.
We gave you an overview of preventative maintenance and an implementation
guide giving step-by-step instructions to help you implement a preventative
maintenance process that we believe is appropriate for the needs of schools. An
operations guide gave you a list of ongoing activities that the process requires in
order for you to keep it going and reap the benefits.
Check your understanding of the process by following:
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Step
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Tasks
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Design your network.
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The three Ds of designing your network:
1 Do it right - the correct installation and set-up of network
components is the most effective element of preventative
maintenance, so:
- plan properly any changes to your network
- install a firewall for internet and WAN connections
- install antivirus software with up-to-date definition files
- minimise the possibility of physical damage to network
equipment.
2 Duplicate it - your network equipment - wherever possible, so:
- for each type of device on your network consider buying a
matching spare for quick replacement
- consider redundancy for critical equipment such as RAID for
servers, multiple paths for network traffic or back-up internet
connections
- consider duplicating configurations for workstations by
creating a standard software image.
3 Document it - know what you need to maintain, so:
- collect together all manufacturers' manuals and instructions
- create physical and logical topology maps of the network
- manage ICT infrastructure changes to network components,
layout or set-up.
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Maintaining your network.
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Each component of your network has its own special usage and
maintenance concerns that you must deal with in order to provide
maximum network reliability. A maintenance schedule is a useful
tool to help you maintain your network regularly.
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Prepare your network for
failure.
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Even with a sound preventative maintenance schedule, failures
will still occur. There are measures you can take to ensure that,
when components do fail, you can repair the network in the
fastest time possible. These include:
- making sure that you know when something has failed by
using network monitoring or through incident reports
- maintaining a stock of spare equipment
- storing detailed documentation on network components
- backing up critical data
- identifying who is responsible for preventative maintenance.
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What you should expect now that you have implemented Preventative
Maintenance
- A regular maintenance schedule for the components of the network should be in
place and followed.
- Your network gets very few major network outages, which means higher
availability for the ICT users.
- You experience minimal occurrences of virus infection and malicious attack by
hackers.
- You have spare equipment you can use to resolve some incidents.
- Your network components have increased life expectancy.
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What you should have achieved through Preventative Maintenance
- Because you implement redundancy in critical equipment such as servers,
network paths and internet connections, your network experiences fewer major
outages.
- Using your own spare network components enables you to resolve incidents
quickly by replacing faulty hardware.
- You have protected your network by putting a firewall in place to stop malicious
attacks.
- You have protected your network by putting antivirus software in place to stop
attacks by viruses, worms and Trojan horses.
- There will be fewer failures caused by ICT infrastructure changes if a change
management process is used alongside preventative maintenance.
- Your network suffers fewer failures caused by environmental and physical
damage.
- You have improved the life expectancy and reliability of network components,
which reduces the cost of replacing equipment.
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Benefits of having implemented Preventative Maintenance
- You can provide a stable and reliable network as a result of the correct
installation and set-up of network components.
- A firewall protects your network from any attack through your internet
connection.
- Antivirus software protects your network from viruses, worms and Trojan horses.
- Any hardware failures will have minimal impact on the availability of the ICT
services because you have duplicated your critical network equipment and
components.
- In the event of a hardware failure, your store of spare equipment allows you to
swap out the faulty item and restore the ICT service quickly.
- A regular maintenance schedule has increased the reliability and lifetime of
your network equipment.
- A regular back-up schedule ensures that you are able to restore data in cases
of data loss caused by network failure.
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