// Knowledge · Guides
IT guides: groundwork for decisions in mid-sized companies
Nine articles on the questions that sit on the table before an investment — criteria, sequences and checklists rather than product recommendations.
// What this is for
Understand it first, then commission it
Most IT decisions in mid-sized companies get made under time pressure. A machine dies, a lease runs out, an audit is coming. Anyone thinking about cable routes, backup design or support models for the first time in that situation is deciding on instinct, whether they want to or not.
These guides take the pressure out of those moments. Each article answers a question we are asked regularly and makes visible the criteria you can reasonably decide by. What follows from that for your company stays your call — nothing here is selling anything, and none of it ends in a product list.
Where a subject turns into actual work, we point to the relevant service page: an overview of every field is on our IT services page, and how CaNo Solutions works as an IT partner for Düsseldorf and the Rhine-Ruhr region is set out on the home page.
// Selection, cost & working together
Before you appoint anyone
Three articles for the phase where nothing is installed yet: comparing firms, reading proposals, settling the support model.
Choosing an IT provider
How to recognise a firm that fits — and which answers may be missing in a first meeting, and which may not.
See the criteriaWhat IT service costs
Which factors drive the effort, and how proposals can be compared at all.
Managed or break-fix?
Call someone when it breaks, or hand over continuous care — and when each one holds.
// Network, building & cloud
When infrastructure gets built or moved
Articles for construction projects, relocations and migrations — where decisions stay in place for many years.
Planning network cabling
From the demand survey through containment and outlets to the test report at handover.
Open the guideFibre or copper?
Five questions that settle the medium in a building — and why the answer is usually both.
Preparing a cloud migration
A readiness checklist: what has to be clear before the first application moves.
// Security, backup & response
For the day something goes wrong
Three articles that belong together: prevent, be able to restore, and react in an orderly way when it counts.
Cybersecurity checklist
Twelve points a smaller company without a security team can work through on its own.
Open the checklistThe 3-2-1 rule
Why three copies on two media are worth nothing until somebody has restored one.
Building a response plan
Who decides, who is informed, who pulls the network — agreed before the incident.
// About these guides
Questions about the collection
01 Who are these guides written for?
For managing directors, commercial leads and IT contacts in mid-sized companies — people who decide about IT without spending all day inside it. The articles assume no specialist vocabulary and explain terms where they first appear.
02 Are the articles vendor-neutral?
Yes. We deliberately name no products and no brands, and describe criteria, sequences and trade-offs instead. Which product eventually fits depends on your environment, and that decision belongs at the end of an analysis rather than the start of an article.
03 Can we use the checklists for our own tender?
Please do. The lists are written so they can be lifted into a requirements document or a supplier comparison. If you cannot answer a line, that is precisely the signal showing where the project still needs clarifying.
04 How often do new articles appear?
The collection grows along the questions we are actually asked in first meetings. Existing articles get reworked as soon as the technical ground or the legal framework moves noticeably.
Read it, sorted it — what now?
If you want to know which parts of it genuinely apply to your environment, we will look at it together. No preconditions, and no product list in the bag.