IP Taking The Heat

Oct 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By SANDRA KAY MILLER

Gerry Cullen refers to the incident that prompted him to leave Acuity Software and start two environmental monitoring companies (NetBotz and IT WatchDogs) as the “$150,000 Sunday Cook-In.” Over the course of a weekend, when a thermostat in the server room was accidentally set to 95 degrees, four routers, eight servers, two switches and two UPS systems were all destroyed due to excessive heat.

If losing the equipment wasn't bad enough, Cullen estimates that it took an additional month to order new equipment, install and reload all the applications. Although some data could be restored, there was a significant loss that represented weeks' worth of work.

Cullen refused to fall victim to a simple mistake again.

While physical intruders and virtual take-downs such as distributed denial-of-service attacks or natural disasters such as hurricanes often take networks offline, environmental factors, such as excessive heat, humidity, water leaks and power fluctuations can quickly lead to critical equipment failure.

According to Disaster Recovery Journal, “The average hourly revenue lost from downtime is $78,000, and 355 worker hours are lost for each hour of unscheduled downtime.” The Meta Group has found that downtime for online businesses, such as eBay and Amazon.com, can exceed well over $1 million dollars an hour. Fortune 500 companies typically lose $3 million an hour during unexpected network outages, according to IBM.

Kevin Hunt of Texas-based Information Support Concepts says that when cooling failures occur in modern data centers, critical systems are quick to fail. “We're putting more hardware in the data center than we've ever done before. Blade servers in particular are responsible for the increased rack density as well as mounting heat build-up, requiring more granular monitoring capabilities.”

While standalone environmental monitoring systems have been around many years, the growing trend has been to integrate sensors and alerting mechanisms into IP-based networks. “The traditional physical security industry is converging information technology and IT security, creating value and innovation in the world of doors, locks and video surveillance,” says Steve Hunt, founder of the 4A International consulting firm and a former analyst at Forrester Research and Giga Information Group. Hunt estimates that the convergence of physical and logical security will create a market exceeding $22 billion by 2010. “By moving alarms, alerts, video images and security data more efficiently across shared networks, organizations can benefit from lower costs of operation, more value and greater security,” he says.

Teri Volz of Geist Manufacturing, Lincoln, Neb., makers of RacSense power and environmental monitoring products, agrees with Hunt. “Temperature is obviously the number one issue on everyone's mind with the move to blade servers because they kick off some serious heat. If a cooling system were to turn off or go down, it doesn't take long for equipment to incur permanent damage.”

Cullen has found that even one well-placed temperature sensor can offer as much as an hour's warning when cooling systems falter.

In addition to being proactive with environmental monitoring, Cullen makes the following recommendation: “Every IT manager who has lived through an air conditioning failure agrees that a service contract with a reliable A/C repair company with backup personnel must be established.”

Because sensors are mechanical equipment, they have the potential to fail. Cullen suggests tripping sensors on a monthly basis to ensure they are functioning properly.

Besides IP-based temperature and humidity probes, many environmental monitoring products also include comprehensive surveillance features. Door sensors are often a low-cost option. Based upon magnetically activated switches, sensors can immediately alert when a door to a room or a server cabinet has been opened. Fiber-optic sensors detect when lights have been turned on (or off) in particular areas. Microphones log sound levels at regular intervals and report fluctuations such as the lack of ambient noise from computer fans to piercing smoke detectors.

Environmental monitoring systems routinely include support for low-cost IP-based video cameras. Many that also include audio surveillance can send snapshot images to a pre-determined e-mail address when an alarm is tripped.

The move to IP-based environmental monitoring systems means that alerts can occur much more quickly through multiple avenues. “If anything should happen allowing conditions to cross the user-defined thresholds, then an alert can be sent through a variety of methods,” Volz says. Critical alarms can be configured to blast out alerts to multiple people through e-mail, to PDAs, pagers and to mobile phones through text-messaging. Logs can automatically be disseminated through e-mail, FTP and SNMP traps. Web-based interfaces mean that administrators can check on the status of all sensors through a secure Web browser.

Volz points out that the environmental monitoring industry has also responded to customer requests by going beyond monitoring sensors and including remote control, especially for power supplies and individual outlet control.

Organizations looking to install an environmental monitoring system can expect to spend anywhere from $500 to $2,500 to get started, depending of the number of features and sensors required. Environmental monitoring systems are modular and can be built gradually instead of installed all at once.

These types of systems are still considered a niche to the overall security market. However, major infrastructure vendors are taking notice of their importance. In October 2005, American Power Conversion (APC) paid cash — $31 million — to acquire NetBotz, developer of a Web-based environmental conditions monitoring solution. Rodger B. Dowdell, Jr., president and CEO of APC, viewed the acquisition as an opportunity for APC to expand its portfolio of environmental monitoring solutions, thus increasing its position in the $7 billion network-critical physical infrastructure market.

Although environmental mishaps, such as overheating, water leaks and rising humidity are rare, when they do occur the resulting damage can be as severe as a full-scale security event. By integrating environmental monitoring sensors coupled with surveillance equipment, organizations can increase their security while preempting potential disaster.

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© 2009 Penton Media Inc.

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