Enterprise Information Security Architecture - Research Paper Example

The witnessed continued and fast growth of IT and e variety of challenges to those business organizations that invest heavily in information and communication technologies to support their day-to-day business activities. Chief IT infrastructure components of these organizations are particularly at high risk of interrupting the IT operations leading to significant social and economic declines (Aoufi & Office, 2011). Light Walkers Ltd is in this category of risk since it relies heavily on IT in its business operation processes. The organization lacks basic standards of EISA, centralization, and methodological maturity.

Computing hardware
Light Walkers Ltd hardware computing infrastructures are medium in terms of specification. The organization is organized into different departments whereby each department is equipped with different computing hardware. The department of human resources for instance is equipped with legacy systems. The workstations are old such that they are not adaptable to the changing business needs of the organization. These systems are not only old; they are also from various computer vendors such as Dell, Compaq, Fujitsu, and HP. This variance in the hardware architecture brings about the difficulty of transforming the organization to suit the current business requirements. In this case, if the organization has to consider changing in resonance with the changing business environment, Light Walkers Ltd should think of procuring new computer systems hardware. This will bring the organization to the basic requirement of platform standardization required in the EISA framework.

The department of finance is also equipped with varying hardware platforms. The same case applies to the department of sales and marketing and the department of production. The specifications for these systems are not suitable for complying with the current volatile business trends. The RAM size for most computing hardware in this organization is 512MB with a hard disk space of 120GB and a processing speed of 2.0GHz.

The organization is also in possession of three servers for production, financial information, a web server, and a proxy server for the internet. These servers are all from HP Company and have a RAM size of 3.0 GB, hard disk space of 500GB, and processing speeds of 3.0 GHz. It is not long since those machines were procured but due to changing business needs of Light Walkers Ltd, the servers are no longer capable of supporting evolving business requirements efficiently.
Light Walkers Ltd also has external storage devices for backup purposes. The mainly used storage devices are the basic DVDs. However, there are also external hard disk drives of 250 GB used for backing up critical information of the organization such as financial information.

Network components
Light Walkers Ltd is composed of various departments and sections physically separated. They are however interlinked through a LAN network that is wired using the common copper Ethernet cables. There are various switches, network bridges, and routers. This network is maintained by the IT staff of the organization. Client-server technology is used to link the individual hosts sharing common data and information.
Software components
There is special software that is used by various departments of Light Walkers Ltd to execute their tasks such as accounting software for the finance department and human resource management system for the human resources department. These software programs from various software vendors are installed in specific machines where they are only needed for business purposes.

The operating systems running in Light Walkers Ltd computer system workstations are of varied vendors. Most of these workstations run Mac OS while some operate on Linux and others on Microsoft Windows. All the servers run on Linux operating system since the security of Linux is more advanced. All the computer systems in the organization are protected against viruses with the Kaspersky antivirus program from Kaspersky. Software programs in these computers are maintained and serviced by the IT personnel of Light Walkers Ltd.


Recommendations
I highly recommend that Light Walkers Ltd should consider purchasing new computer systems with high specifications in the market to allow the organization to cope with tremendous changes in business requirements. These systems should be bought from a reliable vendor whose machines have proved to withstand challenges normally witnessed in the computing world. Examples of such vendors include HP, Dell, or Compaq but only one of them should be chosen.

I also recommend that the organization should consider centralization of software components like the accounting software, the human resource management system, and the production management system by procuring an ERP system to put to rest various issues arising from the isolation of information systems and to cut down the costs and reinforce efficiency (Bigelow, 2002). The centralized approach of information systems has proved to be efficient in supporting the business processes of an organization (Lane, 2011).
In addition, the company should consider migrating to wireless connectivity to support free connectivity movement of personnel within the company for example when having meetings and needing to use the internet. This calls for another recommendation that the company also consider procuring laptop machines for the same reason.
Considering all these recommendations will help the organization achieve the standardization, centralization, and methodology requirements required for EISA.
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