In today's world, stable operation and security of servers are extremely important conditions for successful business. That is why your company's server IT infrastructure must be built in such a way that it meets modern technologies, requirements and standards.
Since technologies are developing extremely quickly, in the process of growth and development of your company, there are needs to implement new technologies, improve existing IT services, and most importantly, optimize your costs and resources to increase profits. It is important for the head of the enterprise to clearly understand the directions of development and improvement of IT services, because the investments you make in your IT department today may be used irrationally and tomorrow they may not be enough to meet the needs and requirements of your company.
That is why it is important to perform an IT audit periodically, especially for large complex infrastructures.
The server IT infrastructure audit is a set of works on the examination and analysis of the main components of the company's IT infrastructure for compliance with modern technologies and the needs of your business in order to determine opportunities for further optimization and modernization.
From the point of view of the IT department, an independent external assessment of the state of IT services is an opportunity to optimize computing resources, increase the level of reliability and security, and obtain up-to-date technical documentation and instructions.
For Business, an IT audit is a tool that helps in developing a strategy and making a decision on the directions for improving the IT infrastructure to optimize the costs of IT services in the company.
In other words, an audit is a comprehensive, intelligent approach to the organization, modernization, and optimization of the IT infrastructure, which allows you to save money, time, and nerves of the company and its managers. After all, there is no need to make unnecessary movements and expenses for the implementation or use of systems that entail other services - the miser, as you know, pays twice. Also, an audit is a great opportunity to get a reliable partner for further fruitful cooperation.
When should an IT audit be conducted?
There are many cases where an IT audit can help your business or enterprise. An audit is required if:
- The company's IT infrastructure is outdated (software and equipment have not been updated for several years), the last audit was conducted more than three years ago, or was not conducted at all;
- Your organization is rapidly growing and developing, hires new employees, opens a new branch, or vice versa, the staff is reduced and it is necessary to reduce IT costs;
- New services and systems appear in the company, new technologies are introduced;
- You are not satisfied with the performance of existing information systems (there are frequent errors, malfunctions), you receive constant complaints from users;
- You use the technical support services of an outsourcing company, or you are not satisfied with the work of your IT department.
In all these cases, it is necessary to understand the current state of the infrastructure in order to assess the compliance of IT services with business requirements and identify directions for further development of the company's IT infrastructure.
What types of IT audits are there?
The audit can be comprehensive, or you can conduct an examination of individual services and systems:
- Network infrastructure and wireless network - general information about the network, office network organization scheme, description of the hardware part, configured policies and rules on the equipment;
- Server infrastructure and virtualization system - maturity, performance of equipment and virtual servers, operation of SZD, equipment operation period, availability of vendor support;
- AD directory service – analysis of group policies, domain controllers, structural organization of Active Directory;
- Corporate mail system – settings for mail sending rules, spam protection, filtering settings, DNS operation , etc.;
- Telephony - analysis of hardware and software components, how internal and external call routing is configured, account configuration.
- Monitoring system – system settings, which metrics are recorded, whether there are employee alerts.
- Backup and recovery system – providing fault tolerance, backup and recovery;
- SCS and placement of equipment - how the structure of cable systems is arranged, whether there is access control, video surveillance, how everything interacts, under what conditions the equipment is stored, arrangement in the server cabinet (cable management);
- Workstations and peripherals - performance of user equipment, installed software, availability of latest system updates, etc.;
- SAM-audit – comprehensive software asset management (SAM) services from software audit to software security organization and optimization of used resources, and availability of licenses;
- Business processes – analysis of the company's main performance indicators, principles of work and interaction;
- IT security – assessment of the security of computer systems or networks by means of modeling an attacker's attack.
As a result of the audit, you will receive an independent expert assessment of the current state of your IT infrastructure, which may include the following:
- Detailed information about the current configurations, structure, logical scheme of operation of the main services;
- Data on software and hardware (maturity and security level of installed equipment);
- Statistics on productivity and peak loads in the operation of the infrastructure;
- A list of services and processes that can or should be moved to the cloud environment;
- Assessment of opportunities and directions for optimization of the existing IT infrastructure;
- A report describing the current state of the IT infrastructure and recommendations for improving the productivity of IT services and correcting critical points (capital and operational costs);
- Infrastructure passport (if necessary);
- Optimization program of the existing IT infrastructure with estimated budgets and deadlines (if necessary).
The benefits of an infrastructure audit for your IT systems
What are the long-term operational benefits of auditing your IT infrastructure:
- Improving data security . An IT audit will help point out potential problem areas in the infrastructure, so you can create appropriate strategies to improve the security of your data.
- Reduction of IT costs . Allows you to make informed decisions by correctly planning IT costs.
- Alignment of IT and business goals. This is useful if you have plans for expansion, growth and development in the near future.
- Objective assessment . Conducting an IT audit will allow you to truly assess your system. You will understand whether your previous investments and IT strategies were effective, what to pay attention to in the future.
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How can we help?
The Server Solutions company sells Dell PowerEdge R760 and Dell PowerEdge R760xs servers throughout Ukraine, among our customers are small, medium and large businesses. If you or your company needs advice and the purchase of high-quality server equipment, then you should contact us.