Network Assessments: What They Are and Why You Need One
By Dave Warner, Systems Engineer at Cenetric
Your IT infrastructure is one of the most valuable resources in your business. But without the right protection, it’s vulnerable to threats every day. Your business counts on a secure, efficient network to operate.
Regular network assessments are the key to keeping it that way. By assessing the current state of your network, you can
- Determine where vulnerabilities lie and how to patch them.
- Make better plans for how to deal with a cyberattack if one occurs and for how to mitigate the damages.
- Drastically reduce downtime, inefficiencies and the associated costs.
What is a network assessment?
A network assessment is a full and thorough review of all of your current IT infrastructure. The assessment will analyze processes and their effectiveness, the security you have in place, and the overall performance of your network infrastructure.
After a network assessment, you can create a plan for how to respond to security incidents quickly and minimize the damage. Then you can focus on continually monitoring and managing your network and performing the clean-up work that will ensure efficiency and productivity.
Why network assessments are a business-critical requirement
It’s vital for all businesses, regardless of size, to get a comprehensive view of their current systems and how they are performing. You have to identify the weaknesses that lie within the system before hackers do. Making your infrastructure and procedures more secure is impossible without a network assessment.
From regulatory fines to ransomware fees to data breach cleanup costs to lawsuits, security failures are costly. And they affect your future revenue too: Data breaches can have a serious impact on your business’s reputation.
A thorough network assessment will also tell you how effectively it’s meeting the demands of your business. If it’s not up to par, you can create a proactive plan for your network infrastructure, including how to scale it more easily as you grow, what new technologies to implement and which technologies are unnecessary or underused.
All businesses have inefficiencies and security vulnerabilities within their systems. Regular network assessments will reduce these risks and improve your systems on a continual basis.
Network assessments are cost-effective
Network assessments will also save your company money. Performed regularly, they can help you to identify and cut areas of your network where you’re overspending, including:
- Bandwidth: When lack of bandwidth is slowing your productivity, you’re losing valuable time and money. On the flip side, we’ve found that sometimes companies have signed up for too much bandwidth and overspending. A network assessment will help you figure out just how much you need.
- Unnecessary tech: Having ineffective equipment, software or devices you just don’t need can cost your business in setup fees, continued maintenance, and operating costs.
How to prepare your business for a network assessment
The first thing you should do when carrying out a full network assessment is hire a reliable managed services provider (MSP). Bringing in a team of networking experts will mean that you will get an unbiased set of experienced eyes performing a thorough investigation of all of your systems.
You will need to provide your MSP with full access to all areas of your IT infrastructure, including all physical equipment, devices, software and services. They will analyze everything from speed and traffic to performance and security. Very often, your MSP will add a device to your network so that they can continually monitor your system for speed, traffic, and performance to help you get ahead of issues faster.
What happens after a network assessment
Once their investigation of your system is complete, your MSP will provide you with an in-depth account of everything that they found.
Using this data, they’ll walk you through the next steps you need to take to improve the overall security and efficiency of your infrastructure. They’ll work with you to devise a strategy that closely aligns with your company’s goals and addresses unique challenges of your growing business.
Your strategy might include things like updating policies and procedures, installing new security software across the estate, or implementing disaster recovery plans that deal with worst-case scenarios. Your strategy should focus on making your network more capable of meeting the specific demands of your business.
Cenetric knows networking inside and out
Network assessments are critical for all businesses. By identifying where your systems are failing to provide the security and efficiency your business requires, you can gain competitive advantage in any industry.
If you need guidance to improve your IT operations, Cenetric has the experience and availability you’re looking for. Tell us about your challenges and we’ll be in touch to get started right away.