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Infrastructure
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Building Modern IT Infrastructure for Growing Organizations

Building Modern IT Infrastructure for Growing Organizations

The IT infrastructure that works for 10 people breaks at 50. What works at 50 is completely inadequate at 200. The challenge isn't building something that works today—it's building something that grows with you.

The Foundation: Start with Identity

Your identity provider is the most important piece of infrastructure. Everything else connects to it.

Use either Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Yes, really. Here's why:

  • They're designed for business
  • They include email, documents, and collaboration tools
  • They're secure by default
  • They integrate with everything else
  • They scale automatically

Trying to manage identity without a good provider is like building a house without a foundation.

Networking

VLANs and Network Segmentation

If you have physical offices, you need VLANs. Separate:

  • Guest network (for visitors)
  • Employee network (for regular work)
  • IoT network (for printers, smart devices)
  • Management network (for IT infrastructure)

For Distributed Teams

If you're fully remote or distributed:

  • Use a VPN for any office network access
  • Cloud-first everything else
  • Assume the internet is untrusted

Firewall Rules

Most organizations have firewall rules that are:

  • Too permissive (everyone can access everything)
  • Too restrictive (legitimate work is blocked)
  • Completely undocumented

Build rules that are strict but sensible. Document them.

Data and Backups

The 3-2-1 Rule: 3 copies, 2 different media types, 1 offsite.

For most organizations:

  • Local backups (for quick recovery)
  • Cloud backups (for disaster recovery)
  • Encrypted and tested

Test your restores regularly. A backup you've never restored is just optimistic fiction.

Security Basics

  1. Multi-factor authentication: Everyone, for everything important
  2. Encryption: Data at rest and in transit
  3. Regular updates: Automate this as much as possible
  4. Logging and monitoring: Know what's happening in your systems
  5. Incident response plan: Have a plan before you need it

The Common Mistakes

  1. Building for hypothetical scale. If you have 15 people, don't build for 500. Build for 50. You can grow.

  2. Ignoring the user experience. Overly restrictive security makes employees work around it.

  3. Not documenting network architecture. When a problem happens at 2 AM, you need documentation.

  4. Treating IT as overhead. IT infrastructure is business infrastructure. Invest accordingly.

What to Outsource vs. Build

Outsource: Email, document collaboration, cloud infrastructure

Build/Manage: Network access, system integrations, custom security policies

Hybrid: Backups, monitoring, security

The rule: If it's not your competitive advantage, consider outsourcing.

Scaling as You Grow

10-50 people: Basic cloud setup, one office (if any) 50-200 people: Multiple offices, more sophisticated networking, dedicated IT person 200+ people: Full IT team, probably need a dedicated infrastructure engineer

The good news: Modern cloud infrastructure scales automatically. You don't need to make major changes—you just gradually formalize what you're doing.

Conclusion

Modern infrastructure should be:

  • Simple: Easy to understand and maintain
  • Secure: Protects both the organization and employee privacy
  • Scalable: Grows with the business without major overhauls
  • Reliable: Stays up when you need it

Get these right, and you'll have infrastructure that actually enables your business instead of hindering it.