Preventive work that catches failures before they happen.
Servers rarely fail without warning signs. Structured maintenance catches those signs — bad sectors accumulating, RAM ECC errors trending up, thermal readings climbing, backup jobs failing silently. Fixed before they become downtime.
Firmware & BIOS updates
iDRAC, iLO, XClarity firmware updates. BIOS and system firmware. RAID controller firmware. Applied on scheduled windows — not urgently unless security-critical. Many servers run outdated firmware because nobody updates it; we fix that.
OS patching
Windows Server patches (monthly cumulative), Linux security patches (as released for critical, monthly for standard), application-level updates. Applied during agreed maintenance windows with reboot coordination.
RAID & disk health
SMART data review per disk, RAID array health verification, preemptive replacement of drives showing predictive failure warnings, hot spare status check, rebuild time estimation for capacity planning.
Backup verification
Not just "did the backup job run" — did it actually produce a restorable backup? Regular test restores to alternative locations. Backup integrity checks. Retention verification. This is the most common backup failure mode we see catch businesses.
Log review
Event logs, application logs, security logs. Looking for warning patterns — increasing ECC errors, thermal warnings, authentication failures, unusual activity. Early warnings of hardware issues or security concerns.
Physical & thermal service
Dust removal (server rooms accumulate dust dramatically), thermal paste replacement on aging systems, fan health check and replacement, cable management review, physical security check.
Security & hardening review
Admin account audit, service account review, firewall rule audit, unnecessary services disabled, patch level baseline check, TLS/SSL certificate expiry monitoring, backup encryption verification.
Capacity & performance
Storage growth trending, memory pressure analysis, CPU utilization patterns, database growth. Predicting when upgrades or expansion will be needed — before you hit the wall unexpectedly.
How often, based on what.
Business-critical servers
Production databases, email servers, primary file servers, virtualization hosts running multiple production VMs. Where downtime directly costs money.
Standard business servers
Most SME servers fit here. Business file servers, Active Directory controllers, application servers, backup servers. Balance of maintenance quality vs cost.
Less-critical systems
Development servers, non-production systems, secondary backup servers, less-utilized servers. Basic maintenance twice per year plus reactive support when needed.
Under IT AMC or managed IT services contracts, maintenance frequency is set per your tier and included in the contract fee.