What exactly gets checked in a preventive IT maintenance visit?

What preventive maintenance is, and what it is not

Preventive maintenance is a scheduled review of every system in the company: computers, servers, network, backups and protection against threats. It is not done when something breaks, but on a regular basis, following a specific checklist repeated at every visit.

That is exactly what tells it apart from reactive support: reactive support fixes an issue after it has already happened, while preventive maintenance tries to stop it happening, or catch it while it is still small and cheap to fix.

The steps in the process

Every maintenance visit follows the same outline, although the time spent on each point varies depending on what we find.

• General status check of workstations, servers and network equipment
• Checking pending updates for the operating system and applications
• Verifying that backups have run correctly
• Reviewing the antivirus and other protection tools installed
• Checking free disk space and the health of hard drives
• Reviewing the network, wifi and connectivity equipment
• Delivering a report of what was reviewed, fixed and left pending

What is checked on workstations

On every desktop or laptop we check that the machine is running normally and that there are no signs it will cause problems in the near future.

• Updates for the operating system and the most used programs
• Hard drive health: available space and early failure warnings
• Overall performance: boot times, programs consuming excessive resources
• Status of the antivirus and protection installed
• Connected peripherals: printers, scanners, monitors
• Cleaning temporary files and unnecessary programs that slow the machine down

What is checked on servers

The server is the piece that affects the whole company the most if it fails, so its review is more thorough than that of a single workstation.

We check the physical state of the hardware, resource usage, system error logs, and that the services it provides (email, file sharing, internal applications) run without interruptions or unusual slowdowns.

• Status of the disks and the power supply
• Event logs and operating system errors
• Memory, processor and disk space usage
• Status of the services it provides: email, shared files, management software
• Security updates for the server operating system

What is checked on the network and wifi

An undersized network or outdated equipment causes slowdowns and drops that often get blamed on the computer when the problem actually lies in the router, the switch or the access point.

• Status and firmware of the router, switches and wifi access points
• Wifi coverage across the different areas of the premises
• Network segmentation: separation between work network, guests and IoT devices
• Cabling and physical connections in network cabinets and outlets
• Remote access configuration, if the company uses it

Backups and restore testing

A backup that has never been tested for restoration is a backup we cannot vouch for. That is why, besides checking that the backup job runs every day without errors, we run periodic restore tests on some files or systems.

We also check that there is more than one copy and in more than one location, so that a failure where they are stored does not leave the company with nothing to recover.

• Daily backup run without errors
• Backup in at least two different locations, one of them off-site
• Real restore test of files or a full system
• Checking how long a full restore would take

Security and updates

A large share of the serious incidents we handle come from systems that had gone months without updates. During preventive maintenance we check that security patches are up to date on every machine, not just on the server.

We also review access permissions: who can access which folders, which passwords have gone too long without being changed, and whether there are users who should no longer have access because they have left the company.

What report the client receives

At the end of every visit we deliver a report listing what was reviewed, what was fixed on the spot and what remains pending, each with an assigned priority.

That report also works as a historical record: over time it shows the evolution of the IT fleet and helps anticipate when a machine will need replacing before it causes serious problems.