Routine IT tasks often get left until an economic downturn puts a
curb on IT spending
In the current economic climate, the likelihood is that large IT
projects are going to require significant justification if they are
not to be put on hold. But this does not mean that IT departments
have to fall idle. For some companies, this enforced hiatus may be
a good thing.
Now is the time to examine whether those big projects are really
necessary after all.
For example, the first thing many companies do when a network
performance problem occurs is to throw bandwidth at it. By
installing faster routers or more switches they hope that the
network will perform better and that the problem will be solved.
This solution might work in the short term, but it can also be a
significant waste of money.
What happens next time new users are added to the network, or
demands are placed on it by new, bandwidth hungry applications?
Another upgrade? More often than not the underlying problems will
eventually return and you're back to square one.
IT departments need to understand fully what is happening on their
networks, but how often is the classic user complaint "the network
is slow" really investigated properly? Do IT departments know where
the growth of traffic is? Are there network bottlenecks, and if so
where are they?
A process of rigorously analysing the state of the networks should
be carried out before starting expensive upgrade projects, but in
times of prosperity, it can be easier to take the path of least
resistance and go for the simple boost in networking power.
However, only when existing network faults and error logs have been
properly investigated can IT staff see whether the current network
is being used as well as it could be, and what actions could be
taken to increase efficiency.
The results of such investigations can have real, positive effects
on the IT budget. In many cases, the scope of the original project
may be greatly changed, directing existing, or additional resources
to the real source of the network problem.
By analysing network performance, spend can often be reduced, but
by analysing network security, potential costs can also be avoided.
This is another area that is often overlooked in the normal bustle
of day-to-day network operations.
The potential suspension of large IT projects gives staff the
perfect opportunity to evaluate company security systems to ensure
that they are correctly configured and doing the job they're
supposed to.
For instance, perhaps the best way to evaluate network security is
to run penetration testing using "ethical hacking" techniques - but
how often are these tests actually carried out?
It is difficult to know how effective the security is unless you
know how many times it has been breached. If security flaws are
discovered, further investigation should be carried out to discover
where and how.
Firewalls also need to be checked continually and often
re-configured. In many cases, this will not have been done since
the initial configuration.
These are all actions that should be carried out as a matter of
course by IT departments to ensure that systems are running at
optimum efficiency.
However, the day-to-day pressures of rolling out new applications
or adding new users can mean that many are overlooked.
Ironically, it is often only in times of economic downturn when IT
directors are under pressure to curb IT spending, that such
activities take place.
Alan McGibbon is managing director of Scalable Networks