BEST PRACTICES

---

Whether you're starting small or you have a full on-site computing staff, the best practices are still the same.  Below is a suggested list of system administration practices that you should review periodically.

Preventative Server Maintenance:

1. Backups (ex. 1 weekly tape for 4 weeks, 1 monthly tape for 3 months, etc)
1. Daily differential mail, database, server, and system state backups to tape
2. Weekly full mail, database, server, and system state backups to tape
3. Monthly full backup of mail, database, server, system state, and each desktop/laptop
4. Weekly tape change and transfer of tapes offsite

2. Event Log Review
1. Weekly log file review
•  Exchange Server
•  IIS
•  Firewall/Proxy Server (consider installing for Internet security)
•  Router
•  Backup
•  Event Viewer: System/Application/Security entries

2. Verify system services (background processes) are operational
3. Investigate root-cause of any errors found in the log files
4. Record any error messages that are not a problem and can be ignored

3. Disk defragmentation software (Background process to optimize server storage)
1. Weekly check of each drive
2. Monthly analysis and optimize the defragmentation schedule
3. Schedule boot-time defragmentation if needed

4. Operating system repair diskette (RDISK.EXE)
1. Recreate the repair diskette for each upgrade or configuration change
2. Monthly save the system state and recreate the repair diskette just to be sure

5. System performance monitoring
1. Weekly review of key system performance metrics
• Pages Faults/sec and Hard page reads/sec
• % CPU
• Total Memory
• Disk I/O rate
2. Quarterly review of metrics: remove unnecessary metrics, add useful ones.
3. Monthly review of data to detect trends

6. Storage Maintenance
1. Weekly scan of disk space for temporary/stray files
2. Weekly check and adjustment of disk quotas (if enabled)
3. Monthly ScanDisk to verify the integrity of the file structure

7. Capacity/Upgrade Planning
1. Monthly check of supplies (ex. backup tapes, CDROM disks, toner cartridges)
2. Monthly check for newly released patches and upgrades to software and firmware with planning for installation or deferral
3. Monthly verification that the anti-virus software is up-to-date
4. Quarterly logistics review; identify the need for spare parts
5. Semi-annual planning: review growth in users, disk space, applications, etc to determine the need for additional disk space, hardware / software upgrades, etc.

Preventative PC Maintenance:

1.  One full backup / period (frequency based on whether it contain dynamic user data)
2.  Disk checkup
   •  ScanDisk: disk structure check
   •  Defragmentation
   •  Disk space
   •  Antivirus update
   •  Temporary file cleanup
3.  CDROM lens cleaning
4.  Error checking