Question

One of the biggest factors in determining an optimal network design is its cost. This part of the assignment is to help you think about all the possible costs associated with building a new network. Research and identify a minimum of five (5) factors that would influence the budget. Describe each factor and explain how it influences the overall cost considerations for your network.

Identify at least five factors that influence or drive the cost to build the network. Feel free to do independent research to get ideas of various cost drivers. Cite externally referenced research material (APA or MLA style acceptable), if applicable.

Answer 1

Below are five things I urge you to consider when you put together your own organization’s security budget.

1. Identify Your Crown Jewels

Before you start playing with the numbers or including line items, it is absolutely essential to figure out what the “crown jewels” of your business are. By this I mean: what data, intellectual property, systems, and other pieces of the business are most valuable? Which ones are business-critical or mission-critical and must absolutely remain protected — and how secure are they today?

For example, if you are a healthcare company, covered entity, or business associate, then protected health information (or PHI) is one of your crown jewels because it’s critical to the functioning of your business.

If you are a biotech company operating on the cutting edge of science, then your intellectual property will be a crown jewel. It must be protected at all costs for your business to flourish in today’s competitive landscape.

Every business will have different crown jewels, but every business has them. Identifying your crown jewels will offer clarity about where to focus your security efforts and how to prioritize various line items within your budget.

2. Define Business Risks

Next, you want to clearly define your business risks. While this is always something of a guessing game, it’s still important to take a realistic look at the potential threats to your business and the impact that each could have on your ability to continue to function and flourish.

Risks could include:

• Financial losses
• Competitive advantage
• Brand reputation
• Fines or legal repercussions

If you are able to quantify these risks, so much the better. The goal of defining your risks is to be able to run a cost/benefit analysis on your budget. If a security tool costs hundreds of dollars per year but protects your company from ransomware that could cost you thousands of dollars per incident, that may very well be worth investing in. If liability insurance costs thousands of dollars per year and protects you against the very real possibility of a million-dollar lawsuit, again, it’s likely worth it.

3. Calculate the Full ROI

I’ve written before about looking at security as an investment, not just as an expense. This is important because, in many cases, security is not just a protective measure, but can actually boost revenue for your business. Security measures can help the sales team win new business or open avenues in new industries. If your business were to proactively become HIPAA compliant and guarantee the safety of PHI, for example, you would be able to work with any healthcare-related company.

In other cases, investing in new security tools or processes can enable efficiency gains. You might be able to reduce headcount or, even better, allow your current employees to focus more on strategic, value-add projects, rather than busywork like alert handling.

As you analyze various line items in your proposed security budget, be sure to ask yourself not just how much they cost, but how much they could save you and/or how much revenue they could bring in. That’s the best way to get a full picture of whether a certain solution is worth the investment.

4. Cover All the Bases

A good security budget will include quite a few line items beyond what you might think of as traditional security expenditures. Depending on your organization, you may want to include some or all of the following in your budget:

• Employee salaries
• Managed service providers or contract employees
• Security tools
• Backup and data recovery
• Compliance tools
• Compliance audits (including headcount to prepare)
• Liability insurance and legal coverage
• Disaster recovery planning
• PR retainer

It’s easy to forget about things like liability insurance, PR, and data backup, since they may not, at first blush, seem to be directly connected to security. But think comprehensively, and be as thorough as you can to avoid budgetary surprises down the road.

5. Do Your Diligence on Tools

When I review budgets, I often ask teams tough questions. I want them to walk me through their thought process around each tool so I can be sure the money we are being asked to spend is bringing in enough value in return.

The kinds of questions I ask are:

• What tools do we currently have in place?
• Do any of the our current tools already do what the proposed new tools can do?
• If so, can we replace one or more of the tools we already have with the new ones?
• Did we fully explore all the options before settling on these?
• Do more cost-effective options exist? (If so, why is the one proposed the right one for our organization?)
• How will the proposed tools work with the ones we already have?
• What are the risks of doing nothing or going without this new tool?

Depending on your organization, you may need to ask some or all of these. It’s the job of a finance officer or team to make sure that we are spending the organization’s money in a way that will not just keep us secure in the short-term but will protect the health of the business for the long haul and even contribute to revenue streams when possible.

4 Key Factors to Consider When Creating an IT Network

1. Understand your network goals. Surprisingly, not all businesses consider what the actual goal of their IT network is. Before moving forward with network creation, it’s crucial to establish what its purpose is to acquire the right components and resources. Will it incorporate a BYOD strategy and remote locations? What types of information will be stored on segments of the network? Considering these factors will help prevent future confusion

2. Create a budget and acquire components. A budget is one of the most important aspects of network construction. IT costs can escalate quickly when they’re not managed properly, so you want to make sure that capital is reserved for essentials. Once the budget is done, getting the proper equipment is just as important. Switches, servers, PCs, and all other necessary hardware components play a big role in the success (or failure) of an IT network.

3. Training, security, and scalability. Training your staff on newly established policies is important and another aspect that determines how successful an IT network venture is. This goes double for security policies. Speaking of, security is not something to overlook. Properly assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your IT network will determine its stability in the future. It’s important to stress test the IT infrastructure and security against various threats. Otherwise, all the investment involved in creating the network will be threatened by malicious third parties. Scalability is also a crucial element. IT resources need maintenance, upgrades, and updates. Understanding expected network growth will help prevent surprise costs. It will also prepare your organization for necessary expansion, if/when the situation occurs.

4. IT maintenance. Lastly, you’ll need to consider IT network maintenance. Depending on the size of your company, maintaining the upkeep of all hardware and software components can be a herculean task. For some businesses, this is simply too much to handle with their own resources. Understanding whether or not you will have the staff to manage IT network demands is a critical component when designing the ideal one. You might want to consider IT managed service providers as a third-party option.

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