Your company’s IT functions much like the human body’s immune system. When everything is working right, you won’t even notice it’s there. But at the first sign of trouble, there’s no mistaking how effective (or ineffective) your IT really is. Does your IT put you and your company down for weeks at a time or is your IT working for your business day-to-day with little interruption? “Business as usual” is more than a comforting phrase—it should be the mission statement of effective IT operations.
Implementing industry best practices is a big part of a healthy IT infrastructure, but there’s more to it than just following the “prescription.” You don’t get sick just because you’re exposed to germs. Germs are everywhere and when your immune system is working properly, you usually don’t notice. Of course, no matter how great your immune system is, you’ll still encounter sickness from time to time. There are viruses and germs that may circumvent your body’s layers of defense, wreaking havoc along the way. This is when your immune system kicks into overdrive to protect you.
Healthy IT will undoubtedly encounter problems that cannot be foreseen. Some of these problems and threats may not have immediate solutions yet either, but it’s all about the response. Your IT should fight any threat—just like your immune system.
Both your body and your IT systems are made up of multiple layers of defense. These layers consist of many varied tools, system monitoring devices and recovery strategies. There are elements that focus on detection and identification, others that learn about new threats and evolve to destroy them, while others fight the problem head-on or work to repair the damage caused.
These various elements of a healthy IT system are built to function as a whole, providing your network with the best possible protection so that business can always remain business as usual. Using this information as a guide, you can determine whether your IT system works like a healthy immune system, or if you need to boost your IT health.
MONITORING
Your immune system is proactive—it works around the clock watching and maintaining your health. It learns and evolves depending upon the threats it encounters, making you effectively stronger and more resistant to repeated attacks. The next time you encounter an illness, it may result in only a sniffle instead of a full-blown flu that shuts you down for days.
Healthy IT involves a similar process, called proactive monitoring. Watching and routinely scanning your systems is essential to your network integrity. If your IT systems don’t monitor your network every hour of every day of every year, then you can bet your infrastructure is going to get sick sooner or later. Sure, you’re likely to recover, but can you really afford the downtime, especially if it could have been prevented?
PREDICTION
While your body cannot predict when an illness will strike, it does work very hard to be properly prepared. Each and every exposure to illness teaches your immune system how to better defend itself so it can be better prepared for a future exposure. Healthy IT works in much the same way.
Utilizing multi-layered defense strategies, good IT is built around what has come before it, learning and getting stronger. Today’s network security is more advanced—more evolved—than most people ever dreamed possible: evolving as digital threats have advanced. While there will always be threats to IT security, a solid, trustworthy and proactive safety net, will always be your first and best line of defense.
PREVENTION
A digital virus is called a “virus” for a reason! It acts just like viruses out in the real world. Once a system is infected, the virus damages that system by using up resources while self-replicating in an attempt to thrive in a host. Digital viruses do the same thing within your computer network, but they damage, destroy or steal information. When your network becomes infected with a virus, your IT must do everything possible to eliminate it and repair the damage that was caused.
Healthy IT does the same thing: constantly evaluating all areas of to ensure the most stable, secure, functional system. When a problem is detected, no matter how minor, strong IT systems immediately begin working on and implementing the proper solution.
HEALTHY IT = NETWORK SECURITY
Healthy IT operates just like your body’s immune system. When a threat has been detected, your immune system produces antibodies to fight the threat. These antibodies (produced by white blood cells and T-cells) are like little warriors, defending and eliminating whatever is attacking your body. Your network security depends on strong IT protection. You could even think of a healthy IT network as one full of “(I)T-cells,” little warriors that defend and protect everything valuable to your business.