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Network Documentation: Preparing for a Rainy Day
In the event of a disaster, getting your business back up and running again is the most important goal. Networks can go down for any number of reasons, from user error to natural causes. Sometimes restoring your business to normal regulation means building new infrastructure from scratch, sometimes it means moving your current infrastructure to another location, and sometimes it just means getting mission critical systems online until you can repair your facility.
No matter what the disaster recovery plan is, good network documentation and a disaster recovery plan are great tools to aid your IT department and get your systems back on its feet. Even without a major disaster, good network documentation can increase repair time on nonthreatening issues. Your IT department goes on vacation and you need to hire an outside consultant? A sizable amount of time will be spent learning your network before the problem can even be addressed.
Good network documentation contains several things: IP addresses, admin passwords, network diagrams, specific information on your servers, firewall configuration files, and any number of other details, depending on the size of your network. The better organized and indexed the information is, the faster a network engineer or repair technician can access it and get your network infrastructure up and running.
It’s easy to view network documentation as an unnecessary step when building or servicing a network. It takes labor and is often treated like an afterthought. However, good network documentation is akin to a form of insurance. It increases the speed of network repair and ensures your business is ready for a very rainy day.
