100+ Essential IT Operations Checklist to Keep Your Infrastructure Running Smoothly

Part 1 – Server Hardware Operations (15 key checks)

Check 1 – Device appearance and status LEDs

Visually inspect the server chassis for physical damage or deformation and verify that power, disk activity, fan, and alarm LEDs are showing normal status.

Check 2 – Power system integrity

Redundant power module status (green indicator is normal)

Power‑cable connections are secure, undamaged, and properly seated

PDU indicator lights and measured voltage/current are within specification

Check 3 – Cooling and ventilation

Fan operation (listen for abnormal noises, vibration, or stopped fans)

Dust removal from fan blades and heat‑sink grilles according to cleaning schedule

Temperature monitoring via hardware management interfaces or sensors

Check 4 – Processor health

Use OS tools (Linux top/htop, Windows Task Manager) or out‑of‑band management (iLO, iDRAC, IMM) to monitor CPU utilization and temperature, flagging sustained loads above 80 %.

Check 5 – Memory health

Validate that reported memory size matches physical configuration

Monitor memory usage and swap usage; high swap indicates memory pressure

Run hardware diagnostics (e.g., dmidecode) to detect ECC errors

Check 6 – Storage subsystem

Verify controller status is online

Check redundant power modules and fan operation for storage arrays

Inspect disk status LEDs (green = healthy, yellow = pre‑failure, red = failed)

Confirm RAID configuration level and health; ensure no degraded or rebuilding arrays without monitoring

Check 7 – PCIe expansion devices

Confirm that HBA cards, network adapters, and GPUs report normal status.

Check 8 – Out‑of‑band management interfaces

Test connectivity and login to iLO, iDRAC, iBMC, etc., to ensure remote management works.

Check 9 – Firmware version management

Periodically review BIOS/UEFI, BMC, RAID controller, and network‑adapter firmware versions and plan updates only when non‑critical.

Check 10 – Physical connection compliance

Verify that all data, fiber, and storage cables are firmly connected, labeled clearly, and not overly bent.

Check 11 – System log deep analysis

Review OS event logs (Linux dmesg, journalctl; Windows Event Viewer) for hardware‑related warnings and errors.

Check 12 – Spare‑part inventory

Confirm weekly or monthly stock levels for power modules, fans, and drives.

Check 13 – Asset information verification

Cross‑check physical location, asset tags, and configuration details (CPU model, memory size, disk layout) against CMDB records.

Check 14 – Environmental cleanliness

Ensure regular cleaning of server surfaces and surrounding areas to prevent dust accumulation.

Check 15 – Mechanical safety

Inspect chassis covers and securing screws; improper fastening can affect cooling and safety.

Part 2 – Network Device Operations (15 key checks)

Check 16 – Device appearance

Visually inspect switches, routers, firewalls for physical condition and LED status (power, status, port).

Check 17 – Power system

Validate redundant power modules, power‑cable integrity, and PDU status.

Check 18 – Cooling system

Check fan operation, noise levels, and airflow clearance.

Check 19 – Resource utilization

Monitor CPU and memory usage; keep utilization below 70 % during peak periods.

Check 20 – Port status

Verify that all business ports are up/up with correct speed and duplex

Investigate any err‑disable ports

Monitor input/output error counters for core and uplink ports

Check 21 – Link aggregation

Ensure aggregated port groups are up and member ports remain consistent.

Check 22 – STP/RSTP/MSTP state

Confirm root bridge location and port roles (root, designated, blocked) match design; watch for unexpected topology change notifications.

Check 23 – Routing protocol neighbors

Check BGP, OSPF, EIGRP neighbor states (established, fully adjacent)

Validate routing‑table convergence and absence of route flapping

Check 24 – Access‑control and policy application

Verify ACLs, policy‑routing, and QoS rules are correctly applied to intended interfaces.

Check 25 – Management interface testing

Test out‑of‑band management ports (management network, console) for connectivity and login.

Check 26 – Configuration backup and consistency

Regularly back up device configurations and compare running vs. startup configs.

Check 27 – Configuration file management and backup

Maintain secure storage of configuration files after changes.

Check 28 – Configuration file integrity

Validate configuration file checksums after backup.

Check 29 – Physical connection and labeling

Ensure all network cables and fiber jumpers are securely connected and clearly labeled.

Check 30 – Rack‑environment organization

Check rack mounting stability, cable management, and adequate airflow.

Part 3 – Storage System Operations (14 key checks)

Check 31 – Controller status

Confirm all storage controllers are online and not in degraded mode.

Check 32 – Power and cooling for storage

Verify redundant power modules and fan operation for storage arrays.

Check 33 – Disk enclosure and physical disks

Check enclosure health and link status

Verify all physical disks report online, hot‑spare, or healthy status

Check 34 – Pool and LUN status

Ensure storage pools/volumes are online; no degraded states.

Check 35 – RAID health

RAID groups should be in optimal state; monitor rebuild progress if applicable.

Check 36 – Cache system status

Check write‑cache enablement and battery/FCWB health (OK, charged).

Check 37 – Front‑end host interfaces

Validate FC, iSCSI, NFS, CIFS host ports are online and error‑free.

Check 38 – Back‑end disk interfaces

Verify SAS or FC back‑end ports are operational.

Check 39 – Performance metrics

Monitor IOPS, throughput (MB/s), and latency; flag abnormal spikes.

Check 40 – Snapshot and replication status

Check local snapshots and remote replication (sync/async) for failures or pending states.

Check 41 – Capacity planning

Total, used, and free capacity of pools/filesystems

Alert when utilization exceeds 80 %

Check 42 – Management interface and logs

Test in‑band and out‑of‑band management connectivity; review system and event logs.

Check 43 – Firmware version management

Periodically review firmware for controllers, enclosures, and drives; schedule upgrades.

Check 44 – Physical environment

Inspect storage device cooling, cable connections, and labeling.

Part 4 – Operating‑System Operations (15 key checks)

Check 45 – System load and service status

Linux: uptime, w; Windows: Performance Monitor for average load

Check critical services with systemctl status (Linux) or Service Manager (Windows)

Check 46 – Processor usage analysis

Use top, htop, mpstat -P ALL (Linux) or Task Manager/Performance Monitor (Windows) to identify high‑load processes.

Check 47 – Memory statistics

Linux: free -m, vmstat; Windows: System Information

Monitor swap usage; high swap indicates memory shortage

Check 48 – Disk space monitoring

Linux: df -h; Windows: Resource Monitor or wmic Identify large files/directories with du -sh * or WinDirStat

Check 49 – Disk I/O performance

Linux: iostat -dx 1; Windows: Performance Monitor – monitor read/write rates, latency, queue depth.

Check 50 – Network interface and traffic

Linux: ip addr, ifconfig; Windows: ipconfig Traffic monitoring with iftop, nload, vnstat (Linux) or Resource Monitor (Windows)

Check TCP states with netstat -anp (Linux) or netstat -ano (Windows); watch for excessive TIME_WAIT or CLOSE_WAIT

Check 51 – User sessions and login audit

Linux: who, w; Windows: query user Review recent login history with last (Linux) or Security Event Log (Windows)

Detect abnormal logins or privilege escalations

Check 52 – Critical process resource consumption

Monitor CPU, memory, and handle counts for database, middleware, and application processes.

Check 53 – System log review

Linux: /var/log/messages, /var/log/syslog, dmesg; Windows: System and Application logs

Filter for ERROR, WARNING, CRIT, FAIL levels

Check 54 – Scheduled task status

Linux: crontab -l and /etc/cron*; Windows: Task Scheduler – verify successful execution.

Check 55 – Filesystem integrity

Linux: fsck; Windows: chkdsk – run during maintenance windows.

Check 56 – Update and patch management

Linux: yum check-update, apt list --upgradable; Windows: Windows Update

Follow change‑management process for testing and deployment

Check 57 – Time synchronization

Verify NTP service status; Linux: ntpq -p, timedatectl; Windows: w32tm /query /status.

Check 58 – System security configuration audit

Review SSH config (/etc/ssh/sshd_config), password policies, firewall rules (iptables/nftables/firewalld on Linux; Windows Firewall on Windows).

Check 59 – Configuration backup validation

Periodically verify backups of critical OS configuration files for completeness and integrity.

Part 5 – Database System Operations (11 key checks)

Check 60 – Instance status

Oracle: SELECT status FROM v$instance; MySQL: SHOW DATABASES; SQL Server: SELECT state_desc FROM sys.databases.

Check 61 – Listener service

Oracle: lsnrctl status; MySQL: SHOW PROCESSLIST; SQL Server: SQL Server Configuration Manager.

Check 62 – Tablespace / file‑group usage

Oracle: query DBA_FREE_SPACE; MySQL: INFORMATION_SCHEMA.FILES; SQL Server: sp_helpdb or sys.database_files.

Check 63 – Performance metrics

Monitor active sessions, logical read/write ratio, cache hit rate, lock waits

Identify slow queries: Oracle AWR/ASH, MySQL slow‑query log, SQL Server sp_whoisactive or Extended Events

Check 64 – Backup completion

Verify latest full, incremental, or log backups succeeded; check file sizes and logs for errors.

Check 65 – Backup log analysis

Review alert logs (Oracle alert_*.log, MySQL error log, SQL Server error log) for ORA‑, Error messages.

Check 66 – Job scheduler status

Oracle Scheduler, MySQL Event Scheduler, SQL Server Agent – ensure critical jobs (backup, stats collection, archiving) completed successfully.

Check 67 – Statistics maintenance

Periodically verify that table and index statistics are up‑to‑date; run auto‑gather or manual collection as needed.

Check 68 – Connection and session management

Monitor current connection count; detect abnormal or long‑idle sessions.

Check 69 – Replication / data‑guard status

MySQL Replication, SQL Server AlwaysOn/Replication, Oracle Data Guard – verify health and acceptable lag.

Check 70 – Security audit

Regularly audit database user permissions and audit logs to ensure compliance with security policies.

Part 6 – Virtualization Platform Operations (10 key checks)

Check 71 – Cluster health

Verify vCenter, SCVMM, or Proxmox VE cluster status; no host isolation or error states.

Check 72 – Host health

Check ESXi, Hyper‑V, or KVM hosts for CPU, memory, storage, network alerts and patch levels.

Check 73 – VM power state

Ensure all VMs are powered as expected; investigate unresponsive, failed start, or heartbeat loss.

Check 74 – Storage status

Monitor datastore/LUN health, capacity, and performance (latency, IOPS); ensure no inaccessible storage (APD/PDL).

Check 75 – Virtual network

Validate vSwitch/vDS, port‑group status, and physical NIC bonding.

Check 76 – Resource pool utilization

Monitor CPU and memory usage across cluster and hosts; detect contention or bottlenecks.

Check 77 – HA/FT/DRS features

Confirm High Availability, Fault Tolerance, and Distributed Resource Scheduler are operational.

Check 78 – VM backup status

Verify backup jobs for VMs completed successfully and backup files are validated.

Check 79 – Management node health

Check vCenter Server, SCVMM server, or Proxmox VE node performance and logs.

Check 80 – Firmware and driver versions

Review HBA, NIC firmware and driver versions on hosts; assess need for upgrades.

Part 7 – Backup System Operations (8 key checks)

Check 81 – Backup job execution

Ensure scheduled full, incremental, and differential backup jobs finish as planned; review job logs for errors.

Check 82 – Data integrity verification

Run integrity checks if supported by backup software

Perform regular restore drills (granular and full restores) to confirm recoverability

Check 83 – Backup storage capacity

Monitor disk‑library, tape‑library, or cloud storage usage; maintain sufficient free space for future backups.

Check 84 – Media status

If using tape, verify drive health, tape condition (clean, data), and robotic library status.

Check 85 – Backup policy review

Periodically audit RPO/RTO targets and retention periods to ensure they meet business needs.

Check 86 – Client‑agent health

Confirm backup agents on servers/applications are online and functioning.

Check 87 – Backup software health

Check backup server and media server performance, logs, and license validity.

Check 88 – Off‑site replication

Verify status and synchronization of remote copy or cloud backup tasks.

Part 8 – Security‑Device and Policy Operations (11 key checks)

Check 89 – Firewall system status

Verify engine health, HA state, interface status, and session counts.

Check 90 – Security policy activation

Ensure ACLs, NAT, IPS/IDS, and application‑control policies are enabled.

Check 91 – Threat detection and logs

Analyze IPS/IDS alerts for recent threats

Review firewall deny logs for abnormal scans or attacks

Check 92 – VPN connection status

Confirm VPN tunnels are up and monitor number of active user connections.

Check 93 – Antivirus status

Check definition updates, scan task health, and absence of large‑scale infections.

Check 94 – Vulnerability‑scan results

Review latest scan reports; track remediation of high‑ and medium‑risk findings.

Check 95 – Security‑log audit

Examine SIEM or device logs for login failures, privilege changes, policy modifications, and high‑severity events.

Check 96 – ACL audit

Periodically audit firewall, router, and server ACLs; remove expired or unnecessary rules.

Check 97 – Digital‑certificate management

Monitor expiration dates of SSL‑VPN, HTTPS proxies, etc., to avoid service interruption.

Check 98 – Security‑device configuration backup

Back up firewall, IPS, WAF configurations after changes or on a regular schedule.

Check 99 – Signature/feature‑database updates

Check OS and IPS/AV signature versions; apply updates according to schedule.

Part 9 – Data‑Center Facility Operations (10 key checks)

Check 100 – Environmental temperature & humidity

Continuously monitor temperature (22‑24 °C) and humidity (40‑60 % RH); keep values within thresholds.

Check 101 – UPS parameters

Input/output voltage, current, frequency, load percentage

Battery health: float voltage, internal resistance, estimated backup time

Operating mode should be Normal (online)

Check 102 – Precision‑air‑conditioning

Verify AC operation, set temperature/humidity, supply/return air temperatures, compressor and fan status, and any alarms.

Check 103 – Power‑distribution monitoring

Check total input and each branch circuit voltage, current, switch status, and indicator lights.

Check 104 – Leak‑detection system

Ensure leak sensors are operational, correctly placed, and no leak alarms are active.

Check 105 – Fire‑suppression system

Professional inspection of gas‑fire system, smoke/heat detectors, and pressure gauges; only authorized personnel may operate.

Check 106 – Access‑control testing

Test card or biometric readers, door‑magnet sensors, and log‑query functionality.

Check 107 – Video‑surveillance

Confirm camera images are clear, cover critical zones (entrances, cabinets, power rooms, AC rooms), and recording storage is functional.

Check 108 – Physical‑environment management

Cleanliness: no dust on floors or cabinet tops

Clear hot/cold aisles; no obstructions

Cabinet doors closed

Check 109 – Asset labeling

Verify all equipment, cables, switches, and power circuits have clear, accurate, and complete labels.

Check 110 – General safety notice

Only qualified personnel may perform maintenance on power, UPS, and fire‑suppression equipment.