IT Audit

[LeMarchand]

Has anyone ever paid an external company to come in, look at the equipment provision and make recommendations on what needs replacing and when? If so, any recommendations, and an idea of cost?

 

I guess my summation wasn't acceptable. I can't help but feel that the head may need to sit down before reading how much getting things up to scratch will cost.

[kennysarmy]

Do you mean your back-end and infrastructure or PC's, laptops, printers, the whole lot?

 

Does the Head not trust the IT team to provide a costed roadmap of replacements? :/

[dmj]

No, but depressing that they will trust a third party over existing employees.

Similar stuff happened all the time in the University I worked at. I moved on to a place where I am trusted.

[dmj]

and an idea of cost?

 

I would expect it will be free on provisio they get the business

[LeMarchand]

Do you mean your back-end and infrastructure or PC's, laptops, printers, the whole lot?

 

Does the Head not trust the IT team to provide a costed roadmap of replacements? :/

 

 

The whole lot, from network cabling to keyboards and mice. I'm the IT Team and seemingly not, or they don't believe me that many years of "only if it's breaking" replacements mean pretty much everything is outdated.

 

I would expect it will be free on provisio they get the business

 

 

That's a fair agreement, but what worries me is that the "wrong" advisor will try to put in their most expensive kit and/or the rubbish they want to get shot of. Not to mention sell their managed service...

[Jawloms]

We did! They asked us what we'd like audited. We said "aren't you supposed to tell us?" They said no and that they'd audit what we asked them to. We eventually told them what we'd like done, where we thought our strong points are, where our weaknesses are, and they then put exactly what we'd told them in a document and charged us a few hundred £ for it. When we asked for advice as to what to do about our weak spots they said they didn't do that.

 

Check up front what they do before you commit!!

[kennysarmy]

The whole lot, from network cabling to keyboards and mice. I'm the IT Team and seemingly not, or they don't believe me that many years of "only if it's breaking" replacements mean pretty much everything is outdated.

 

 

 

 

That's a fair agreement, but what worries me is that the "wrong" advisor will try to put in their most expensive kit and/or the rubbish they want to get shot of. Not to mention sell their managed service...

 

Surely you'd have to get three quotes or go to tender, you can't just buy kit off someone who's come in to give advice !!

[LeMarchand]

Surely you'd have to get three quotes or go to tender, you can't just buy kit off someone who's come in to give advice !!

 

Good point.

 

TBH, I fully expect this to be one of those things where, once I get some idea of how much people want to get paid to even look, will fall back to me. Then I will be told there is no money!

[dmj]

Surely you'd have to get three quotes or go to tender, you can't just buy kit off someone who's come in to give advice !!

 

even better, get three companies to come in and advise !

[Fazza]

Surely you'd have to get three quotes or go to tender, you can't just buy kit off someone who's come in to give advice !!

 

That all depends on what your Schools financial regulations say. That's why most places would not be able to get a 'free' audit but most suppliers will offer it in return for the business so you have to be careful what you agree to for anything 'free'.

 

I'm assuming they will report straight back to the Head (thus bypassing you) and will most likely speak about them being an MSP instead of doing it in house so good luck with your audit - personally I'd be looking for employment elsewhere if you feel they dont trust/believe you as that's a red flag for me.

[LeMarchand]

I'd be looking for employment elsewhere if you feel they dont trust/believe you as that's a red flag for me.

 

I think that I survived the recent rounds of lay offs due to how much it would cost in redundancy. TBH, my wife wants me to take early retirement and it's not my main site so, while I'd rather stay working for as long as possible, if they want to give me a golden handshake it wouldn't be the end of the world. I'm reasonably confident that I could pick up those hours elsewhere if necessary and it would be survivable, as well as giving me more time with the wife, if not.

[ITGURU]

tell them to be secure and current windows 11 24H2 will only support CPU's with SSE 4.2. If they want to be current and receive security updates, then update the kit.

[LeMarchand]

tell them to be secure and current windows 11 24H2 will only support CPU's with SSE 4.2. If they want to be current and receive security updates, then update the kit.

 

They are aware of the W11 timebomb, but have yet to give me a budget to do anything about it (probably have yet to read my report from months ago!).

Edited December 13, 2024 by LeMarchand

[Chris_Cook]

We had it done. Not sure what it cost.

 

There was a certain amount of hand-holding and showing where things were and what was there. And giving admin credentials and installing their management agent which I wasn't best pleased about.

 

Its a pain and not a nice feeling to have someone judge your work, but it can also be useful to have someone backup what you've probably been saying for years.

 

Our audit gave us a RAG (Red amber green) table of where things were at each school which was good for visualising and comparing the schools in our trust.

 

They are unlikely to get the full picture with only a few days to do it, but a conversation with them about what you know that they might miss etc. can be valuable. Its likely to be a very surface level thing - server versions, wifi version, switch models etc. They won't necessarily capture ongoing reliability issues and things like that.

 

I'd also recommend some form of scoping meeting with the ones who want the audit done, and the auditors to iron out the issues other commenters have made above, and make sure you don't sign up for anything unexpected.

 

Ours probably overlapped about 95% with what we were saying. And we could see green items where we had done work as well which was encouraging.

 

I do think its something all school should have done, but maybe not externally. I'd add it with a vulnerability scan as well to show where old kit is an actual risk.