What you can do about Christmas tree fire hazards
Filed under: Security Monitoring, smoke detector, temperature monitoring
The holiday season is finally upon us. As usual, with the cold weather comes turkey dinner and Black Friday sales - but that’s not all! If your family is anything like mine, the first thing you do after properly digesting your stuffing and waking from your Tryptophan coma is put up that glorious Christmas tree. There is really no better indication of the impending holiday season than a well lit and beautifully decorated tree.
I am a fan of the good ol’ fashion fake tree. Nothing says Happy Holiday’s like the smell of, well… plastic. But as I understand it, there are some 33 million American homes that go the natural route with their tree selection. However, improperly hydrated Christmas trees can pose a very real safety concern. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, “Christmas trees account for 200 fires annually, resulting in 6 deaths, 25 injuries and more than $6 million in property damage.”
Temperature monitoring during the winter months
Filed under: environmental monitoring, Intelligent Sensors, temperature monitoring
With winter just around the corner, those of us in the more northern locations (the Ravica offices are located in Southern Maine) begin preparing for cold temperatures in a variety of ways. Whether you’re just sealing the windows to keep the cold air outside, where it belongs, or selling all of your most prized possessions on Ebay to cover the home heating costs for the impending months, it is important to get a jump on these preparations.
Water leak detection systems in the server room
Filed under: environmental monitoring, water leak monitoring
With the importance placed on temperature and humidity monitoring and detecting hotspots in the data center, it is easy to forget that the second most common cause of catastrophic failure are water leaks. Whether your server room is located near refrigeration equipment used for building cooling, building facilities like bathrooms and kitchens or air conditioning units, precautions need to be taken.
Prevention
It all starts at the building planning level. Having an initial survey, to know if your building is in or near a flood zone, sounds like a no brainer, but it’s surprising how many people I speak with on a weekly basis that are in the heart of a flood zone with no water monitoring system in place. Once you know the situation your server room is in, it is important to take the necessary precautions by having the proper drainage installed, including a sump pump. This protects you in the event flooding becomes present.
Minimize network downtime by monitoring temperature in the data room
Filed under: Data Center, environmental monitoring, humidity monitoring, temperature monitoring
Infrastructure stability is constantly at the forefront of network planning and management. A good data center needs to be well organized and structured for clean operations, but it also needs to be appropriately optimized to guard against environmental disasters. Now, when I say disasters, I don’t necessarily mean typhoons and earthquakes. Even something as simple as an air conditioner losing power and the temperature rising to dangerous levels could be a disaster.
While a building management system can help optimize air flow and lower temperatures, they are not fail proof. That’s where Ravica comes in. Ravica provides some of the largest companies, with the most complex data centers, with solutions that ensure the integrity of environmental conditions within the data room. Not only can our intelligent temperature and humidity sensors tell you when conditions have become hazardous to your equipment, but our SensorProbes can take action as well.
How to reduce false positives and frequent temperature alerts
Filed under: Data Center, environmental monitoring, SensorProbes, temperature monitoring
Previously, I wrote about managing the sensitivity of your motion detector to prevent or reduce false positives from normal environmental motion, while maintaining the security that the motion detector sensor provides. I thought I would elaborate on the subject by providing some tips on how to limit frequent alerts and false positives for any environmental monitoring sensor, like temperature.
As I mentioned before, the “continuous time to report,” or “rearm” as it is called on the SecurityProbe, are an excellent way to say, “Don’t alert me as soon as a sensor goes into a ‘warning’ or ‘critical’ status. However, if it has been in a ‘warning’ state for 30 seconds, let me know.”
Another way to limit how often – or how easily – your BitSight2 or SecurityProbe sends you Skype alerts or emails is to adjust the “reading offset” field, which can be found under each sensor’s advanced settings. The “reading offset” forces the sensor’s reading to move over or under a certainly value before generating an alarm. So basically, if your temperature upper “warning” threshold is set to 80 degrees and your “reading offset” is set to 2, and the current temperature is 79 degrees, then your SensorProbe will not alarm until the temperature drops another degree.
This prohibits the sensor from being right on the verge of a threshold and consistently bouncing between two statuses. You don’t want 20 emails in your inbox because the temperature in your data center is exactly on your threshold and wobbling back forth between “normal” and “warning.”
Another way of limiting alerts during off hours, maintenance windows or times when you are not really concerned with the readings breaching a threshold is to use the calendar feature. Please note that the calendar feature is available only on the SecurityProbe line of SensorProbes.
Block off times that you do not wish to receive alerts and the SecurityProbe will ignore the breached thresholds during those time frames. Perhaps you don’t want to receive alerts during the day, because people are always present and aware of the environmental conditions in the locations you are monitoring. However, maybe you want the temperature of your walk-in cooler monitored at night, when no one is in the building.
Whatever the reason, these are two great tips for better managing your alarms. This ensures that your alarms are more meaningful and so when you or you staff see an alert from your BitSight2 or SecurityProbe, you know it is time to act.
~ Jon Mills
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The importance of monitoring airflow in the office
In a previous blog, Mike mentioned the importance of monitoring the airflow in your data center, but recently we were reminded of just how important airflow is in the work environment. Normally, our office is quite chilly. However, yesterday, the employees of Ravica were treated to nice a nice toasty office to work in. It was certainly a welcome change.
The reason for our cubicles being so nice and warm was because the air conditioning (which is normally blasting non-stop) was not turning on. After several hours, the nice toasty office become a stagnant bog of stale air. Breathing nothing but other people’s CO2 was getting my coworkers and I very sluggish and lethargic – not to mention hot and sweaty.
Luckily, we had a couple of airflow sensors placed in front of the air conditioning vents. As I mentioned, the air conditioning in our work area is typically blowing all day, and quite hard, so to have it shut off for a while and let the office temperature rise a bit, is actually a good thing. However, we can now see that if it does not start back up in a reasonable time frame, things can go too far in the other direction.
To alleviate the issue of getting email alerts from the airflow sensor every time the air conditioning unit shut off, we tweaked the “Continuous time to report” field, under that sensor’s setup screen. Now we can occasionally get a reprieve from our normally frigid conditions, but if the air conditioner stays off for more than a couple of hours, the building manager and our office manager get an email alert. Of course, since we have the airflow sensor connected to a SecurityProbe, we can use escalated notifications. So if for any reason the building manager does not acknowledge the alert within an hour, then he gets a text message sent directly to his phone.
So it is certainly important to keep your expensive data room equipment from overheating, but it is just as important to keep your employees from overheating as well.
~ Jon Mills
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Help desk: How sensitive is your motion detector sensor?
Recently, I blogged about using the motion detector sensor to increase the security presence of your data center. Well, expanding on the topic, I thought I would answer one of those frequently asked questions I get from customers using the motion detector to beef up security. “How do I keep the motion sensor from being set off by very small movements?” The answer – you can adjust the sensitivity of the motion detector using the sensor status filter.
The sensor status filter allows you to enter a time delay that must occur before the sensor changes status, thus filtering out noise in the signal. This avoids unnecessary sending of notifications, as fluctuations can occur during normal working conditions.
To find this setting, go to the Motion Sensor Settings page of the web interface, and click on the sensor status filters button. Change the “Continuous time (secs) sensor is to report” field to some value other than zero. 1 second is a good place to start, but it all depends on your specific working conditions.
At any rate, increasing the continuous time to report field a bit can help keep you from getting false positives and give a little extra room for normal environmental shifts.
Stay tuned to the Ravica blog for more helpful environmental monitoring tips.
~ Jon Mills
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Motion detector sensors add security to your data center
Filed under: environmental monitoring, motion detector, Security Monitoring
While working on a project recently, I was taught the importance of the motion detector sensor in the security monitoring toolset. The SecurityProbe is the first place to look for monitoring the temperature, humidity and other environmental variables of your server room, while at the same time adding a security presence with the pan-tilt dome camera support. However, for some customers with smaller or unconventional data centers, the budget for security and environmental monitoring can be in the hundreds of dollars, not thousands.
That’s where the motion detector comes in. It works not only with the SecurityProbe line, but with the BitSight2 and BitSight8 as well. The beauty of the motion detector sensor is that you can daisy chain up to 10 sensors to work off a single intelligent sensor port. And at just $125 per sensor, users can easily cover a good sized data room with motion detection and still have an extra intelligent sensor port on even a BitSight2 for monitoring temperature and humidity.
So keep the motion detector sensor in mind when speccing out a new data room or when adding security monitoring measures to an existing one. It is a very affordable alternative, when it is simply not possible to have eyes and ears on your secure locations.
For more information about our security monitoring solutions, call us at 207-324-8173.
~ Jon Mills
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Remote UNIX server shutdown with SecurityProbe
Today, I thought I would take the time to highlight one of the features that makes the SecurityProbe environmental and security monitoring system so special. Where the BitSight line of probes are great entry level systems, the SecurityProbe line has many additional features that really set it apart; as well as support for the thermocouple sensor and the power monitor.
So what feature am I detailing then? Let’s talk about the server shutdown feature. Basically, the SecurityProbe can be configured to automatically shutdown a server when an event occurs. An example might be that you want to shutdown a cluster of servers based on the status of an AC voltage sensor. When you get an alert that the power went out and you are running on battery backup, this could keep your non-essential equipment from sucking up all the remaining juice.
Wondering how you configure this on your SecurityProbe? You are in luck! Just follow the instructions below.
Setup of UNIX shutdown action and notification
1. Create new Action
- Select the “Notifications” page, then “Add Action” from the left panel.
- You can rename the action in the “Action Name” box.
2. Select “Shutdown” from the “Action” drop down menu.
3. Select “UNIX (SSH)” from the “OS Platform” drop down menu.
4. Input your servers IP address into the “Remote Server IP” box.
5. Input your log in username into the “Remote Server Login Name” box.
6. Click on “Add Server”. Add additional IP’s if needed. Click “Next”.
7. Click “Reset Public Key” (If you already have a Public Key, skip this step and proceed to step number 11 below).
8. After clicking “Reset Public Key” a new Window will then pop up, press “Generate”.
9. The unit will now generate a new public key. It will normally take approximately 1 to 3 minutes for the system to generate the new public key, so please be patient.
10. After the public key has been generated, press “Use This Public Key”.
11. Open a Telnet or SSH session to the unit.
cd ~/.ssh
ls
rm known_hosts
12. Make sure to delete the know_hosts file to ensure generating a new list of hosts when using this command shown above.
ssh @
When
is User name in server
is IP address of server
13. Then connect to the server by using this command shown above.
cd ~/.ssh
cat > authorized_keys
#copy public key from web interface and press (for putty can press by right click)
#press Enter button and press Ctrl + c for exit cat command
14. After connecting to the server, create an authorized_keys file by using this command shown above
15. Then disconnect from the server and connect to the unit.
ssh –I /flash1/user/shutdown_notify/dsskey.db @
When
is User name in server
is IP address of server
16. Now test the public key by using this command shown above.
17. Return to the units web interface and click “Next”.
18. You can now set the other settings in the Shutdown action and click “Next”.
19. You can also enable a shutdown message to be sent by first choosing “Enabled”, then entering your message in the “Shutdown Message” box, then clicking “Finish”.
That’s all there is to it. Stay tuned for more SecurityProbe exclusive feature spotlights.
~ Jon Mills
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Humidity monitoring for a walk-in humidor
Filed under: environmental monitoring, humidity monitoring, SensorProbes, temperature monitoring
So maybe you haven’t already investigated how to build a walkin-humidor for storing your extensive cigar collection. Maybe you have never smoked a cigar in your life, and are totally against the practice – that’s okay. However, if you are a tobacconist, than you will definitely be able to appreciate what one of our customers did to ensure just the right level of temperature and humidity in his customized smoke lounge and walk-in humidor.
First he researched exactly what was needed to build the actual enclosure (lots of Spanish Cedar) and built it. Then, knowing that the air in the room would need to be kept moist (recommended humidity level is around 70%), he purchased a humidifier from Bemis that would match the decor. It is equally important that the room stay at, or very near, 70 degrees Fahrenheit. So, he installed a in-wall forced-air heater, to ensure that the temperature remained constant. However, neither the humidifier nor the heater should be running all of the time. So using a BitSight8, a few single port temperature and humidity sensors, placed at key areas around the room, and a sensor controlled relay, he was able to accomplish his goal. Now, the humidifier and the heater turn on automatically when the temp or humidity reach the desired thresholds. All of this was easily configured in the BitSight’s web-based user interface.
So if you are a cigar aficionado or not, it is easy to see just how many different scenarios in the home or office call for a controlled environment. All it takes to avoid potential disaster is good planning and an even better environmental monitoring system in place. That’s where we come in!
~ Jon Mills
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