Putting out the fire before it starts: proactive technology support

ABSTRACT

At Bucknell University, the Technology Support workgroup has initiated a proactive approach to faculty and staff desktop computing support. Through the use of scanning and monitoring tools, we seek to identify and eliminate potential problems before the client can be disrupted or inconvenienced.We currently have several tools that allow us to distribute timely information to the client. These tools include the opening greeting heard by callers of our technology support number, a web based campus outage and alert center, a custom outage-alert/popup program on the client's computer, portal access to our problem tracking system, and numerous training sessions.Technology Support has also bought and developed several tools to gather information from the client's computers in order to identify machines that will soon be having trouble. These tools help us remotely identify failing hard drives, identify disks approaching capacity, and identify and sometimes fix other preventable problems.Our Technology Support workgroup currently manages an array of centrally managed, preventative maintenance services for our clients, including anti-virus, anti-spyware, windows patching (via WSUS) and centralized, network backup of all faculty and staff desktops.Thanks to our use of proactive tools, we have been able to reduce the number of emergency calls and lower the downtime experienced by our clients. Proactive computing support is better for Technology Support staff and for the university than the reactive/crisis model.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.4 System Management
          Subjects: Quality assurance

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.4 System Management
          Subjects: Centralization/decentralization

General Terms:
Human Factors, Management

Keywords:
backup, client communication, prevention, remote detection