The complexity of a state-of-the-art business network is enormous. Most small business networks rely on core technology from Microsoft including Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft Office 2003 (in its many variations), and Microsoft Windows XP. While this base platform provides incredible functionality to a small business, there are literally thousands of potential configuration settings that must be considered and optimized. In addition, Microsoft has built the product to support companies with 5 employees to hundreds of thousands of employees. In such a diverse environment all of the settings available do not apply to all of the businesses and can adversely affect performance. Computer Gallery has spent the last several years researching and developing our Small Business Network Model. The purpose of the SBNM is to evaluate the myriad settings and distill the configuration down to a standard. By developing a standard, we can optimize your network settings, provide benchmarks to rate performance, provide uniform training to your staff for better productivity, improve reliability and uptime, and lower your cost of network operation.

The SBNM is a policy based approach. We work with you develop a written network policy manual. Several examples of network policies would be standardized email signatures in outgoing company email, forms distribution for MS Office templates, desktop backgrounds and screensavers deployed network wide that display the company logo or name, or disabling the use of games on the workstation.

Good network management requires that your users understand what they can and can not do with company information assets. We have a sample “acceptable use” manual that you can use to augment your existing employee manual. This document outlines best practice guidelines for internet usage, email communication, password and security expectations, general computer usage and more.

Our engineers provide outstanding service to our clients thanks to our SBNM. Computer Gallery engineers undergo a rigorous interview process that determines if the have the right stuff to work on your network. Once a new engineer comes on board, they must pass lengthy training sessions and become certified on our internal standards. We will not send an engineer to you until they have demonstrated mastery of the SBNM. This allows us to achieve much higher levels of service as all of our engineers will be familiar with the settings on your network.