Network Infrastructure Assessment- An Important Aspect for the Success of Your Business

One of the most important aspects of any network design is the security. A safe and secure network design helps in better segregation of network, enables easy access, removes single points of failure and provides better logging and monitoring. The security of the infrastructure and architecture of a network is essential for a successful business venture. This is the reason why each network device should be appropriately designed and well-secured. You can mitigate many risks by implementing a secure network infrastructure.

By assessing your network infrastructure, you can determine the overall performance and capacity of the network to cope with future growth, meet the security and availability objectives and handle bandwidth-sensitive applications like VoIP. Conducting an assessment that appropriately represents the design, configuration and performance of a network will help you know about the various problem areas that prevail.

Benefits of Network Infrastructure Assessment

Many networks in production that are being used today were built in the late 90s. In the recent years, the network infrastructure has become more complex. Wireless and mobility are being integrated into the network. The latest technology trends like convergence, virtualization and data center consolidation have resulted in new demands for the network.

Many of the networks are not designed to be based on the best practices in the industry for better performance. Some of them even have outdated hardware and software platforms that may not be supported by the manufacturer. Apart from this, some of the networks require higher operational costs as it becomes difficult to maintain, to operate and to troubleshoot them. The network assessments will provide you with operations management, security and convergence readiness assessment.

Methodology of Network Assessment

The overall process includes assessing the present security technology as well as various processes in the organization. It also includes evaluating the critical information assets in the infrastructure. A professional network assessment company will evaluate your current design structure including the security control mechanisms to determine the effectiveness of the company network security. The service provider can also help to revise the security objective in order to make the entire process more up-to-date.

Here are the common assessment steps that are followed by professionals:

Assessing Network Architecture – In this step, a complete assessment of the network design and architecture is carried out. The current environment is compared to the proven architecture and real-world networking experience.

Stability and Configuration Assessment – Here, a detailed review of the individual devices are conducted. The existing operational state of the network is analyzed to assess the overall stability and reliability.

Performance Analysis - Professional companies use advanced software tools to observe and report about the performance anomalies. Various tools are used to analyze and correlate the network device configurations.

Scanning the Vulnerability and Penetration Testing - The security of each host is evaluated by conducting a series of penetration tests and by scanning the vulnerability of the network.

A thorough assessment is the perfect way to determine the issues related to a network. It outlines the major issues that a company needs to address in order to ensure the success of the business venture.