The ACR server is a piece of hardware that stores and maintains all the company’s unique data that is critical in the operation of a business. The server is generally on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without fail and has your data to be accessed within ACR at a moment’s notice. It may look like one big piece of machinery, however it is actually many smaller parts working together to make sure the processing of products, sales, invoices are able to be stored and retrieved for your business. The server includes: multiple hard drives, the CPU (the brains of the operation), network interfaces (to let your computers talk to the server from anywhere in the office), RAM (memory to let all employees access it at the same time) and finally the ACR Backup drives (to make sure your data is safe at all times.
Why am I mentioning all this?
The ACR server has MULTIPLE parts to it, if any of those fail (due to age) then the likelihood of the rest of the parts failing go up exponentially. These servers generally should be upgraded every five years, this is to maintain the integrity of all the parts mentioned above. We are not saying that at five years the server will just turn off and be out for the count, but the likelihood of a catastrophe goes up at around the five-year mark. Also, access to spare parts becomes difficult or in some cases impossible with ageing servers, as there is no obligation by the manufacturer to keep making older parts. If there is a breakdown of the server after the warranty period, there will be an extended outage while a new machine is sourced, provisioned and installed, which could be catastrophic for a business. So if the server is reaching the five-year mark, ask one of our friendly tech staff on the benefits of upgrading the server. We will always be happy to help.