Back from holidays: September's week of IT checks

• Failed start-ups Laptops with flat batteries and old disks that do not survive weeks switched off.
• Silent failures Servers restarted, disks nearly full and backups that did not run, with nobody watching the alerts.
• Forgotten access Interns' and cover staff accounts still active, suppliers still on the VPN.
• Network under pressure Wi-Fi that served ten people now takes fifty, plus new phones and laptops.
• Phantom costs Summer licences and subscriptions that keep being billed.

Switch them on the day before the return. A month idle piles up Windows, Office and antivirus patches; ideally they install and restart out of hours, so nobody is left staring at a progress bar.

Roll updates out in batches, never across the whole estate on the same night: if a patch causes trouble, it stays confined to one group. Check laptop batteries and keep an eye on the oldest disks. Any workstations still on Windows 10? Microsoft support ended in October 2025: now is the moment to replace them.

Only a test will tell. Start with the servers: pending patches, restarts waiting, August logs with ignored warnings or disk space running out.

Then the backups. No alerts proves nothing, it may simply mean the alerts reached nobody. Open the backup software, check every day of the month and restore, as proof, one file and one mailbox. See how a managed backup with restore testing works.

Cross-check the list of active users against September's actual staff and close the gap the same day.

• Temporary staff Interns and holiday cover deactivated.
• Permissions Temporary access to folders and management software revoked.
• Third parties VPNs for suppliers who worked over the summer closed.
• Second factor Confirmed on every account, paying attention to those opened in a hurry before the summer. More in MFA for businesses.

Do the count: Microsoft 365 licences on closed accounts, services subscribed "for the summer" still active, contracts renewing automatically in October or November that can still be renegotiated.

This inventory is the raw material for the budget. The 2027 budget is decided between September and October, and it is worth listing now what reaches end of life (Windows Server 2016 in January, equipment out of warranty, contracts), what growth will demand and what can move to a fixed cost. It is not too early: replacing servers and equipment requires lead times and migration windows months in advance. Details in how to build your 2027 IT budget.

Test it at the end of the week, with everyone back, to measure the real load. If there were Wi-Fi complaints in June, they will return; a coverage study fixes the cause. See why business Wi-Fi fails. And if the company got through the summer on a single internet connection, it was lucky, it did not have redundancy.

Finish with security. In summer, phishing exploits reduced teams and hurried cover staff. Review the suspicious messages received, update the firewall firmware and signatures (subscriptions lapse without warning) and schedule awareness training for the second half of the month. Starting point: the cybersecurity checklist for Portuguese SMEs.

Two, at a minimum. Joiners: whoever starts in September has an account, equipment and access ready on day one, not at the end of the week. Leavers: whoever left in August has their account disabled and their equipment collected and checked. Both are part of the 7 internal cybersecurity policies recommended for any company.

For DataRoad - IT Services and Consulting's IT Unlimited clients, almost none of this waits for September. Patches are applied in planned windows, licences appear in the monthly report and, on the Premium 365 plan, 24/7 NOC monitoring flags the restarted server or the failed backup in the middle of August. In September, the only meeting is about the plan for 2027.

We review each point with your team, resolve whatever is overdue and deliver in writing what should go into the 2027 budget. No-commitment proposal.

More than 10 workstations · support contract · remote, on-site and telephone support.

Call +351 211 459 950 * or write to sales@dataroad.pt.

*Call to a Portuguese landline.