Availability—The control to ensure availability and
reliability of a network is through good network architecture
and monitoring. The design of the network should ensure
that between every resource and an access point there are
redundant paths and automatic routing to switch the traffic
to the available path without loss of data or time. Every
component in the network needs to be fault-tolerant or built
with suitable redundancies. Complex and widespread
networks need to be monitored and managed. This is often
done by using network management software. The
establishment of a network operations center (NOC) with
software tools and a service desk often staffed 24/7 provides
this capability. Such tools provide data for capacity
management. They also ensure that the networks provide
adequate bandwidth to enable the data to move along
without bottlenecks and with the speed required by the
users and applications. The IS audit review should cover
all these aspects.