Securing and Hardening Your On-premises IT Environment — Servers, Endpoints & Network Security

The service includes analysis of your on-premises IT infrastructure and application of security best practices to systems, devices, administrative access, endpoints, storage, operating systems, firewall and network settings, and update policies. The engagement also includes verification of changes and a project closeout report documenting final status, evidence of meeting acceptance criteria, outstanding issues, and final budget.

The main outcome is a more secure on-premises environment in accordance with best practices. IT Partner achieves this by reviewing the existing infrastructure, applying agreed security improvements, verifying the changes, and documenting the final project status.

The engagement typically runs 1 week. The actual plan can vary by workload and environment, because security requirements differ for different types of workloads; scheduling details are confirmed during scoping and kickoff.

The service is billed at $90 per hour, and no out-of-scope work is performed without your written approval. Total effort depends on the number of in-scope systems and the hardening changes you approve.

The engagement starts with a kickoff meeting, followed by an on-premises health check, the securing process, verification of changes, finalization of changes, and any post-assessment tasks. This sequence lets IT Partner understand the current environment, apply hardening measures, and confirm the work before closeout.

IT Partner reviews and hardens administrative access, endpoint access, virtual disks and disk storage, operating systems, firewall and network settings, and update policies. The service also applies practices such as Privileged Access Workstations, multi-factor authentication, and limiting or constraining administrative access where appropriate.

No, migration and deployment are not included in this service. The engagement is focused on securing and hardening the existing on-premises IT environment rather than moving workloads or deploying new infrastructure.

The customer provides a dedicated point of contact, a list of in-scope systems and administrative accounts, approved administrative access to those systems and their management tools, current documentation such as network diagrams and patching process details, confirmed maintenance windows and change approvals, and recent backups or other recovery options for systems where configuration changes will be applied.

IT Partner analyzes the IT infrastructure and applies security best practices across privileged access, MFA, administrative access constraints, endpoint access, storage encryption, operating system management, firewall and network settings, and update policy and software review. IT Partner also verifies changes and provides the project closeout report.

The client is responsible for configuring networking equipment such as load balancers, routers, firewalls, and switches. IT Partner’s scope includes reviewing and hardening firewall and network settings; the exact division of hands-on configuration work is confirmed before the engagement begins.

Changes to firewalls, operating systems, endpoint access, storage, or update policies can affect operations. Maintenance windows, change approvals, and rollback contacts are confirmed before changes are made, and recent backups are a prerequisite for systems where changes carry operational risk.

The included documentation is the project closeout report showing final project status, evidence of meeting acceptance criteria, outstanding issues, and final budget. More extensive documentation can be provided for an additional fee.