Easy Internet access, increasing numbers of users and the proliferation of wireless networks have made information security (IS) a major concern for businesses and government agencies. With access to information easier than ever, businesses must bolster their networks to ensure there are no holes in their infrastructure through which unauthorized visitors can gain access. Additionally, businesses must protect their networks from internal abuse by authorized users within their organizations. With IS, businesses should employ a layered approach that includes the integration of anti-virus, SPAM, content filtering, firewalls and intrusion-detection products. Working together, these solutions guard your network and reinforce your organization’s security policies. After they are installed, integrated security systems require updating and monitoring. Outdated security products are an invitation for abuse. Furthermore, an un-monitored security suite may detect, but not prevent abuse.

The truly mobile workforce has arrived! With the use of remote access and wireless technology (WiFi), businesses have discovered that work-at-home professionals and office workers can significantly increase their job satisfaction and improve their productivity. After rolling out WiFi across its entire campus, Microsoft Corp. predicts that each of its employees will increase productivity by half an hour per day.

A low-cost and secure connection to the Internet enables workers to maintain communication with the corporate infrastructure from virtually any remote location. Within the office, wireless access allows freedom of movement and instant communications. Furthermore, as wireless technologies move to hand-held devices like PDAs, employees can access e-mails and other data at any time from nearly any location.

With budgets stretched, businesses don’t have to upgrade all of their hardware and software. However, it’s important to evaluate the software and systems on which your business relies and to determine if there are updated versions that will yield greater reliability, increased performance and lower total costs of ownership. For example, Windows 2000 and Windows XP offer major advantages over Windows 95-98.

Product upgrades also enable you to take advantage of the newest network operating systems capabilities to run applications on multiple computers. By using multiple processors for critical applications, individual hardware problems will not affect application availability. Additionally, the cost of storage area and network attached storage (SAN and NAS) has reduced drastically. These devices allow real time back ups, improved performance and reliability, as well as simplified operations and capacity planning.

Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and IP-telephone technologies have matured to offer businesses dramatic returns on their investments. By merging voice and data networks, IP telephony enables businesses to transmit telephone calls over their data networks or the Internet, deliver voice-mail and conference-call applications to employees’ desktops and significantly reduce long-distance and inter-office telephone charges. 

IP telephones are well suited for businesses with data lines that connect their enterprise with remote offices around the globe and for businesses wishing to control telephone access from a central location. Moreover, IP architecture offers additional business applications, including video-over-IP, which provides a centralized surveillance of video cameras, as well as video conferencing and training capabilities.

It is unreasonable to assume your staff has the expertise to perform all of your organization’s IT tasks. For example, the complexity of a firewall or messaging system configuration often requires skills and expertise that your internal staff may lack. Rather than expecting staff members to be experts or spending their time to learn the required skills, you can outsource these projects to professionals with the needed experience and credentials. 

You should also consider outsourcing specialized functions, such as application development, security monitoring and network management to organizations that specialize in these areas and are staffed with experts around the clock.

While technology continues to evolve, businesses need to analyze their immediate IT needs and the range of solutions that can yield benefits today and into the future. As you plan your IT budget for 2003, select those technologies that add security and bottom-line value to your business operations.