We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again — your enterprise is only as strong as your infrastructure. An IT infrastructure audit may seem unnecessary, but it has many benefits, including savings.
IT audits are all the more important for large enterprises with on-site or colocation data centers and a massive network. Even if you’ve invested heavily in infrastructure, there’s always room for improvement.
In this article, we will discuss the following:
- What is the purpose of an IT audit.
- How to conduct an IT audit.
- What results to expect.
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What Is An IT Infrastructure Audit?
An IT infrastructure audit evaluates an organization’s IT infrastructure, which may include a variety of assets, such as computers, servers, storage, networking devices, cloud, and software. It may also involve auditing policies and procedures related to infrastructure.
IT audits typically provide information on the infrastructure’s health and condition. By extension, they also answer important questions like:
- Is infrastructure sound and reliable?
- Are systems secure?
- Is there room for performance improvement?
- What systems, devices, or software solutions could use upgrades or refreshes?
IT infrastructure audits can be segmented depending on the size of the enterprise. In most cases, the IT audit concentrates on a specific area or system, for example, cybersecurity or network. However, enterprises can also conduct comprehensive IT audits to get the big picture.
Why Is An IT Infrastructure Audit Important?
In some scenarios, an IT audit may be necessary, for example, if an enterprise struggles to meet its technology performance benchmarks. However, even large companies that don’t seemingly require an audit of their IT assets may benefit immensely from conducting one occasionally.
Here are the benefits of IT audits:
Identifying Limitations And Areas Of Improvement
An IT audit, whether organization-wide or specific to functions, can offer increased visibility into the workings of the different parts of the infrastructure. In other words, it can help identify problems and possible improvements.
For instance, it can identify critical devices that may be too old or complex to serve their function well. Another example could be software that’s not offering the benefits it claims or is underperforming.
Enhanced Security
IT audits can also offer insights into security vulnerabilities, especially IT security audits. You can learn about the level of protection the different systems, appliances, and tools have and how they can be further enhanced.
It can help identify areas of your security that need attention and investment. Combining the findings from the audit with knowledge of emerging security threats can enable your enterprise to prepare better.
Cost Savings
An IT infrastructure audit's most consequential benefit (and often the underlying purpose) is cost saving. Large enterprises have IT budgets worth millions of dollars, combining both operational expenses (OpEx) and capital expenses (CapEx). Often, they’re bleeding money through one or both of these expenditures.
An audit that covers the entire inventory of digital assets can help identify solutions that can bring the cost down. It can also help IT heads plan projects and associated budgets better.
Business Alignment
Technology investments should ultimately favor business goals. While it’s recommended to adopt new technologies and move with the times, it’s best to choose those that make business sense.
Findings from the audit can be used to determine whether technology decisions are aligned with business goals and how future endeavors can be more business-centric.
Compliance
IT audits are also important for ensuring compliance with data protection and privacy regulations.
Are your devices, tools, and processes compliant with applicable regulations in the regions you serve? Do you have a strong policy to implement regulations? Audit reports can answer these critical questions for companies facing increasingly stringent data protection regulations and standards.
Types Of IT Audits
IT audits vary by purpose and the infrastructure components they target. Here are the common IT types or categories:
- Security Audit: It focuses on assessing the security measures in place to protect information assets. It examines access controls, firewalls, encryption, and other security mechanisms to protect networks and data.
- Compliance Audit: It ensures that an organization complies with relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards, for example, GDPR compliance audits, HIPAA compliance audits, etc.
- Risk Assessment: It identifies and evaluates potential risks to the organization's IT infrastructure. It looks for vulnerabilities, threats, and the effectiveness of risk management practices.
- Operational Audit: It focuses on evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of IT operations. Examines processes, workflows, and resource utilization.
- System Development Audit: It reviews the processes involved in developing, testing, and deploying software systems. It ensures compliance with the standards used in the company.
- Network Audit: It assesses the design and configuration of an organization's network infrastructure. The audit also checks for the network’s security, performance, and reliability.
- Application Audit: It focuses on the security and functionality of applications to ensure that they’re running as they’re supposed to and serving their purpose.
- Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) Audit: This evaluates the organization's plans and procedures for ensuring business continuity during a disaster. It’s a review of the enterprise’s disaster recovery plan. It also assesses the effectiveness of backup.
- Cloud Computing Audit: It covers the security and compliance of cloud-based services and infrastructure and examines data protection, access controls, and service-level agreements (SLAs).
- Maintenance Audit: It assesses the efficacy of the IT maintenance strategy and whether maintenance services are reliable enough to ensure near-perfect uptime and availability.
- Third-Party Vendor Audit: It assesses the security and compliance of third-party vendors with access to the organization's systems or data.
How To Conduct An IT Audit: Step-by-step Guide
The exact IT audit may differ based on what exactly is being audited. However, in general, the following process is carried out. Although the audit may take a few days to a week, the preparation may start weeks before.
Here’s a step-by-step process of an IT audit:
- Planning the audit: The first step is planning the audit and determining what will be audited (security systems, hardware, third-party software, network, etc.) and who will audit it. Designate an IT auditor and establish a timeframe for the audit.
- Preparing for the audit: Gather the documentation to initiate the audit, which may include written objectives, scope, checklists, and schedule. List any tools and processes you will employ for the audit, for example, penetration testing tools for security systems.
- Conducting the audit: This stage is multi-step, depending on the IT audit type. The auditor will conduct surveys, interviews, assessments, and tests– depending on what needs to be audited– to gather data. The actual process may vary in complexity, as an IT audit can be something as simple as inventorying all the hardware to something more complex like risk assessment.
- Reporting the findings: The audit may produce many findings, which must be summarized to synthesize important things. Create an official audit report to present to the stakeholders, for example, department or enterprise leadership.
IT Infrastructure Audit Essentials Checklist
No matter what type of IT infrastructure audit you’re conducting, the following checklist will help.
- Gather and review existing documentation.
- Conduct interviews with responsible personnel.
- Examine the inventory.
- Assess the physical/digital soundness of the systems, tools, hardware, etc.
- Examine the processes and policies related to IT assets.
- Test systems, devices, and software solutions for limitations and vulnerabilities.
- Compare processes with organizational, local, and/or international standards.
Improving Infrastructure, Achieving Success
IT infrastructure audits are often conducted to determine the health of the IT infrastructure, including equipment. For enterprises with on-premise hardware and extensive networks, such audits can reveal insightful findings on the performance and reliability of appliances. It also provides valuable information on maintenance.
The underlying purpose is to identify weaknesses and areas of improvement. When it comes to hardware infrastructure audits, maintenance is a key consideration. After all, it can mean the difference between a reliable device and one that’s not.
An IT audit is a fantastic opportunity to reevaluate your maintenance needs. With expensive contracts or undercovered equipment, your maintenance could probably use some improvements. And this is where a third-party maintenance provider like OneCall comes in.
Maintenance should solve your problems, not create new ones. There is a better way to manage your IT maintenance. Protect your critical IT assets with a full life-cycle approach to IT maintenance you can count on. Get coverage tailored to your networks and confidence knowing when something happens, it will be handled right away with OneCall.