Once again we find ourselves facing another Black Friday. Whether your business is based in Austin or any other city, you'll see a flood of retail activity all around you, from lines of shoppers waiting outside your brick-and-mortar store to a flurry of incoming orders on your website. And just as many consumers and cashiers find Black Friday a dizzying, overwhelming experience, IT systems can experience serious challenges of their own. Let's look at the potential problems you may need to address – and how our Austin IT support team can help you address them.

First of all, you need to make sure your servers/bandwidth can keep up with the influx of purchases, purchase inquiries, returns/exchanges and other data-related transactions. This is an especially critical consideration if you do plenty of web-based business. Don't forget that Cyber Monday follows close on the heels on Black Friday, so your data network may receive a double-whammy of activity. Make sure you have redundant connectivity just in case your principal method gets overwhelmed or experiences a crash. At the same time, update your security measures as needed to make sure you're keeping the hackers and viruses at bay during these high-traffic periods.

Even if you're not a retail seller, you may find that Black Friday does a number on your IT system. Any kinds of business in the supply chain, from manufacturers to distributors and shippers, can find their data networks overtaxed by this frenzied shopping day (and weekend). Fortunately, Gravity Systems can come to your rescue in a number of ways. We can evaluate your current system to make sure it's ready to handle your anticipated transaction volume. We can add any servers, workstations, and networking connections you may need, or troubleshoot and repair problems that pop up. Call us so we can make your Black Friday brighter!

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