Kansas Department of Health & Environment’s IT Infrastructure Failure is Recovering
Filed under: Data Center, Notifications, SensorProbes, environmental monitoring
A recent news article reported on an IT infrastructure failure at Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE). The issue was compounded by the fact that it occurred as students were preparing to enter school and needed birth certificates, immunization
records, and other state documents. Because they were no longer electronically accessible, approximately 120,000 of these records had to be retrieved from storage in a central Kansas salt mine, no doubt adding significant man-hours to workers across Kansas.
According to the Healthcare IT News article, the technical problems stemmed from a storage area network (SAN) failure, the hardware which stored agency records. Read more
Ravica Environmental Sensors Are Alternative To “Glass Pavilion”
I recently learned of the existence of a glass house in Montecito, California designed by Los Angeles- based architect Steve Hermann. Considering that this is a glass house in which someone standing outside can see into multiple rooms (including bedrooms and
bathrooms), I question the validity of Mr. Hermann’s statement, “Here I have complete privacy.”
Albeit gorgeous, the home features glass exterior walls, allowing the occupant to be “one with nature.” But it also seems to allow the occupant to be “one with everyone else who is standing outside the house.”
This takes the concept of “neighborhood watch” to a new level. Read more
Ravica Environmental Monitors Begin Where Mayberry Ends
Filed under: Intelligent Sensors, SensorProbes, environmental monitoring, motion detector, smoke detector, water leak monitoring
Growing up in a small town had some advantages, including a feeling of security. For example, when our family would leave town on vacation, the police department kept an eye on our home. Patrol cars drove by our house periodically, day and night, ensuring that our home and possessions were safe. In this way, it was if our small town was in the very capable hands of our own Andy Griffith. These days, law enforcement departments don’t necessarily have the resources to protect property this way.
Fortunately, we can have that sense of trust with a Ravica environmental sensor. Ravica security monitors placed in your property can alert you to the presence of property hazards like smoke and water. While you are away, you can still feel secure knowing you will be alerted to hazards as soon as they happen.
Ravica’s Motion Sensor Cameras Prevent Tremendous Drain on Networks
Filed under: Intelligent Sensors, Security Monitoring, environmental monitoring, motion detector
It seems the need for preventative monitoring is everywhere.
Last week I noted a discussion with an associate who lost data due to a water leak in a data center. Not long after that discussion, I had a conversation with an IT Manager regarding business structure. During our conversation, he mentioned that his building’s security officers recently called him with complaints of slow internet connectivity. He used his company’s NetFlow monitoring tool to find the source of tremendous internet bandwidth streaming. Through the NetFlow Analyzer, he narrowed the focus to one specific security camera and realized the camera was constantly streaming images of an empty hallway. This streaming was pumping pictures to the network server and causing huge delays.
He further used his Scrutinizer Analyzer Read more
Environmental Monitoring Sensors: More Than Just Fancy Smoke Detectors
Filed under: SensorProbes, environmental monitoring, humidity monitoring, smoke detector, temperature monitoring, water leak monitoring
During a conversation this week, an associate of mine explained that his business is growing exponentially. His operation expanded from 5 locations to 18 locations in just 2 years. Considering the national economy during this last 2 years, I found this to be an astonishing and noble feat. But then he casually mentioned something else: one of his centers recently lost data due to a water leak. He mentioned it almost in passing, as if losses of this nature were to be occasionally expected.
Sadly, this type of water damage is fairly common. Not as common as the Old Spice Guy videos on YouTube, but common nonetheless. Read more
Have Questions about NetFlow? Ravica Can Help.
Aside from recently being blasted with swirling vortexes of terror in the form of tornoados (in New England?!), things here are going well. We recently mentioned that we have entered the NetFlow probe arena by offering nProbes and nBoxes for your business needs.
But it did occur to me that we should at least offer a brief overview of what NetFlow is.
Ravica Rolls with the Punches
Greetings from the newbie at Ravica! My name is Angela, and I’ve recently joined the team. And what an exciting time to have been drafted by Ravica- right during National Sports Cliché Week. Imagine my luck! (Coincidentally, it’s also national Parenting Gifted Children Week, which I shall be celebrating since my children are über smart, but I don’t want to brag.)
That last statement was hitting below the belt. I apologize. There is no “I” in “team,” so I won’t make this all about me.
I’m taking it one game at a time at Ravica, but it’s already been apparent that the crew here is a great team. We are all willing to go the distance to show you how we can help protect your home and business with environmental monitoring. Please contact us if you have any questions about the SensorProbes or Intelligent Sensors or about customizing your equipment.
Also… Read more
Using maps to keep an eye on your sensors
Filed under: General, Intelligent Sensors, environmental monitoring
I’ve wrote a lot lately about the expandability of the SecurityProbe line of products and getting the most out of your environmental monitoring system, but with the idea of virtually unlimited expandability comes the problem of keeping track of the hundreds of dry contacts and sensors that are integrated into your monitoring system. When you get a critical alert on temperature sensor 018, do you know where that is located? This can be a be an especially big problem for larger facilities, like college campuses, where the sensors are gathering information from multiple buildings spread out over a large area. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to see at a quick glance where individual sensors are located and if there is a problem. That is exactly what the mapping feature on the SecurityProbe is designed to do. Read more
~JessicaFollow Me on Twitter
The benefits of a Ravica smoke detector
Filed under: General, SensorProbes, environmental monitoring, smoke detector
Everyone knows how important it is to keep facility smoke detectors in good working order. Smoke
detectors are a vital part of the life/safety plan in all residential and commercial buildings. In many situations a standard, battery-operated smoke detector is all you need. It’s reliable, it’s loud, and it gets the job done. However, in some situations the stand alone alarm might not be enough. If the smoke detector is located in an area that is not regularly occupied, like a storage warehouse, there might not be anyone around to hear that loud alarm. Or, what if the emergency occurs after business hours? It is the proverbial tree falling in the forest, but in the case of a fire, the damage will ring loud and clear, even if no one was around to hear the initial alarm. For these kinds of situations, a smoke alarm that ties into a web-based environmental monitoring system is a smart idea.
Read more
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Virtually unlimited expandability for the SecurityProbe . . . connect up to 600 sensors to one unit!
Filed under: General, Ravica News, SensorProbes, environmental monitoring
The majority of Ravica customers that I talk with are looking to monitor a small number of specific environmental conditions—sometimes that is monitoring the temperature and humidity in the data center or detecting water leaks in a second home. For these applications, the BitSight2 and BitSight8 sensor probe models are great environmental monitoring solutions at an affordable price. However, there are times when a customer has a need to monitor many, many more conditions and input devices. For these customers, I’d like to cover the expandability features of the newest SecurityProbe model.
In the past, some of the SecurityProbe advantages included; advanced notification options, great video capabilities and the ability to connect up to 8 sensor probes per unit. The newest SecurityProbe retains all of these great features and adds four RJ-45 expansion ports to the front of the box which allows the connection of up to four expansion units. There are two expansion units options available: the E-opto16 and the E-sensor8.
With the E-opto16, you get 16 isolated dry contact inputs. A typical application for this expansion module would be to connect the dry contact to alarm panels and create custom alerts for each of the alarms. For example, one could have a dry contact connected to the fire alarm, another to the security alarm, and another to the AED cabinet. Each dry contact could then be set up to automatically call the respective emergency operator, in these cases the fire department, police, or paramedics. An unlimited number of E-opto16’s can be daisy-chained to accommodate up to 600 different dry contact inputs.
If you are more interested in increasing the number of intelligent sensors that can be monitored, there is the E-sensor8 that adds 8 sensor ports. Like the E-opto16, the E-sensor8 can be daisy-chained to allow the monitoring of up to 600 sensors through a single SecurityProbe. The two expansion units are also compatible with each other , giving the user complete control in designing the combination of dry contacts and sensors that works for their unique needs.
If you’d like more information on these new expansion modules, give us a call at 207.324.8173. We’d love to help you design an environmental monitoring system that does just what you need it to do.
~JessicaFollow Me on Twitter