A cynical network engineer might say, “configuration drift happens when you take the day off.” Someone changed something they shouldn’t have, and didn’t tell anyone. As a result, the network gets just a little less secure, and a little harder to troubleshoot. And then it happens again. And again. And over time, all those little changes that people thought would never mean anything suddenly add up to a network looking a lot different from what it’s supposed to be.

When I’m speaking to any IT solution provider or managed service provider (MSP), one of the most common questions I’m asked is, “What’s the one mistake you’d recommend any IT businesses avoid?” My answer is always this: Not documenting your business. The reason is simple. If you don’t document your business, you’ll inevitably find your business is prone to an SPF—a single point of failure.

Healthcare SysAdmins haven’t just taken the concept of digital transformation to heart—they’re one of its largest proponents. Quality care improves patient outcomes, so healthcare organizations have embraced the idea of highly connected and digitally enhanced environments to help deliver that care. But while healthcare might often be at the forefront of the digital transformation and tech adoption wave, that doesn’t mean the process isn’t fraught with challenges.

A commonly used tool at the Cisco command line is the access control list (ACL). At their simplest, access control lists are collections of IP addresses that are used by a router, switch, or a firewall to identify network traffic that must be handled in a special way. Cisco and other network vendors use ACLs for many different purposes. This article focuses on IOS access control lists as used on Cisco routers, although much of this discussion applies to Cisco switches as well.

Sometimes we associate “big” with power and success, but being small doesn’t mean you can’t compete—you just need to be smarter at creating a sustainable competitive advantage. Here are 10 things you can do as a small managed service provider (MSP) to punch above your weight.

Administrators are tasked with configuring interfaces on network devices more than any other single thing. This makes sense—interfaces are the main points of connectivity, sending and receiving traffic throughout an organization. Configuring interfaces can be deceptively easy. Switchports might require a VLAN assignment, and often function with no other configuration at all. Router interfaces can be up and running with only an IP address.

Continuous security (or control) validation helps me explain network security with one of my favorite analogies. Network security is like jiu-jitsu. You have no idea how strong your defenses are if you’re not rolling (sparring) regularly. Let’s take a closer look at continuous security validation, and explain why, just like jiu-jitsu, you need to keep your system in practice to keep it sharp.

Automation. It’s a common term. Some may call it a buzzword, even. When it comes to building a network, it’s usually not your first consideration. After all, what’s most important is getting users and devices online—and keeping them there. Isn’t automating the network an advanced step? Are we even capable of making network monitoring and management automatic?