There's a lot to audit on a network and there are benefits to be had if this information is accurate and up to date but as to often happens in business there are too many other priorities. Understanding how your IT assets are used can provide benefits, not only financial but
in the security and productivity arena too.
Having or using unlicensed software on your network can have huge implications and not just from a financial perspective, there are security issues around using cracked software to be concerned with to. Did the software that was obtained from the "net" and installed on your network have some hidden extras, you know the type, they open a backdoor to your network allowing spam to be sent and your domain to be blacklisted or allow full access to your company records and customer details, etc....
What about the financial perspective? FAST (Federation Against Software Piracy) quote that "In Britain it is estimated that approximately 27% of software in use is illegal", that's nearly one in three software installations and the cost to your business if found using pirated software can be huge with unlimited fines and up to 10 years in prison!
There are also savings to be had for the licensed software you do have, can you reduce the number of licenses required, are there
better licensing schemes available or alternatively is there an open source equivalent that can be used instead for free (e.g. 7-Zip in place of WinZip).
When the IT infrastructure has been audited an audit report will be produced, the audit report includes the following information:
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Identification of licensing, ongoing issues and problem areas. |
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IT infrastructure topology. |
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Recommendations on areas such as network, remote acces security and policies. |
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Critical and recommended security fixes for Servers, workstation and appliances. |
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Automatic IT infrastructure maintenance and optimisation options. |
This report will enable you to prioritise your future investment on IT and support in the short, medium and long term, which is why so many customers have found the network audit report to be an invaluable tool when planning their IT strategy.
