IT infrastructure is crucial to a government's ability to deliver services to its citizens. However, if the IT infrastructure is poorly configured and contains assets that are past their end-of-life, this could increase security vulnerabilities and limit effective organisational productivity.
Thanks to a Technology Lifecycle Management (TLM) Assessment service available from Dimension Data, government departments can now obtain a higher level of visibility over their network estate and ensure they're not exposed to unnecessary risk.
TLM is an IT infrastructure asset assessment service that also helps organisations discover installed assets on their network, identify their life cycle status and determine maintenance coverage.
Lubabalo Dyantyi, Senior National General Manager: Public Sector at Dimension Data South Africa, says effective IT infrastructure management and network planning will ensure government entities are proactive and enjoy additional benefits in terms of cost, asset optimisation and security.
"By implementing a TLM Assessment service, government departments will be able to contain costs, tighten security, and achieve greater automation and accuracy in network asset planning.
"With a growing number of applications being deployed on today's government networks, there's an increasingly wide array of technology that must be monitored and maintained.
"By automating asset identification and the evaluation of asset status, government departments can accurately identify basic security, configuration and end-of-life network device issues and proactively address these. This holistic view provides the time, knowledge and insight for government to plan for upgrades, make informed decisions on prolonging the use of certain assets, and budget for those that need upgrades or spares," he adds.
Apart from saving costs, Dimension Data's TLM Assessment can also help government reap the 'green' benefits associated with improved network asset planning. With a holistic view of technology assets, government can determine which equipment to replace, or which technologies, processes and practices to rationalise to improve their environmental impact. An accurate inventory of devices empowers government to reduce its carbon footprint without incurring the cost of new hardware or software.
Based on data obtained from previous assessments, Dimension Data's 2012 Network Barometer Report on the readiness of corporate networks found that 35% of all discovered devices have entered the obsolescence life cycle (ie beyond end-of-sale). Of those, 52% are beyond end-of-software maintenance or end-of-support. A total of 31% of all devices are in this risk category - a definite support and availability risk.
"The ramifications for IT infrastructures are huge," warns Dyantyi. "This statistic highlights the fact that organisations could be protecting their networks better, but either don't know that they need to, or don't have the processes in place to do so."
However, both the IT industry and its clients are maturing. They're also realising that their organisations - and therefore their networks - are going to come under even more pressure as Web 2.0, software as a service (SaaS), video, voice and mobility applications become dominant.
Dimension Data's TLM Assessment comprises three steps:
* Discover: Dimension Data creates a list of network assets based on business and technical reviews with key stakeholders, as well as onsite electronic discovery, ensuring relevant information is collected and that life cycle, security and configuration issues are identified.
* Assess: Using automated tools, the asset list is analysed against security, configuration and end-of-life databases. Based on this analysis, Dimension Data creates a technology roadmap, prioritising and outlining configuration remediations, as well as security and maintenance recommendations.
* Recommend: Dimension Data specialists and key stakeholders discuss the findings and determine how to act based on risk, cost and strategic factors. An action plan is developed.
"Effective decision-making is all about ensuring that the right data is made available to the right people, in a timely fashion. Without clear and comprehensive information, the risks, dependencies and outcomes of business endeavours will largely be left to chance," says Dyantyi.
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