Are you optimizing your environmental monitoring system?
Filed under: Intelligent Sensors, environmental monitoring
Here on the Ravica Blog, we talk a lot about temperature and humidity monitoring in data centers, but did you know 
that you can use the same Sensor Probes to create a centralized monitoring system that can provide information on almost any environmental condition? The following is a run-down of some of the other Ravica intelligent sensors that are available. All the sensors are plug & play, SNMP-enabled and easily integrated into the environmental monitoring system of your dreams. Read more
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Controlling the temperature and humidity in your wine cellar
Filed under: Intelligent Sensors, SensorProbes, environmental monitoring, humidity monitoring, temperature monitoring
Recently, I was watching a home show on television that was all 
about building a wine cellar in your basement. I don’t collect wine myself, but the space was beautiful and I couldn’t help but feel a little vicarious joy as I watched the home owners hold the first tasting party in their private cellar.
If you are a wine aficionado or if you make your living in the wine industry, you know that temperature and humidity control is crucial to storing and aging wines. The optimal temperature for storing wines is a constant 50° – 55°. If it is too cold, the wine won’t mature and will taste flat and lifeless; too warm and the wine will cook and end up tasting off. Read more
~JessicaFollow Me on Twitter
Complete Environment Monitoring
Filed under: Intelligent Sensors, SensorProbes, airflow monitoring, environmental monitoring, motion detector, water leak monitoring
A soup to nuts environmental monitoring solution includes more than just temperature readings, humidity monitoring and smoke detection. If electronic equipment is in the area, it is often a good idea to monitor for other environmental conditions:
- Monitoring for water leaks
- Voltage monitoring for electrical brownouts or complete electrical loss
- Motion detection and automated photo delivery
- Airflow monitoring
Monitoring Temperature in Healthcare Environments
Filed under: Intelligent Sensors, SensorProbes, environmental monitoring, temperature monitoring
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit a family member in the hospital who had just delivered twin girls. The babies came several weeks ahead of schedule, and although they were both healthy, we were told that they were going to need to be in the NICU for several weeks.
After spending hours visiting the hospital, surrounded on all sides by the constant noise of beeping monitors, I really began to appreciate the precision under which the modern hospital is run. It is a finely tuned machine and temperature monitoring is an extremely important part of the operation of that machine. In fact, one of the main reasons that the twins needed to stay in the hospital was that they hadn’t developed the ability to self-regulate their own body temperature. They needed to be in the temperature-controlled environment of the incubator. The entire room in which they were staying also needed to be kept at a precise temperature for the times when they were outside the incubator, bonding with their mother.
Temperature monitoring during the winter months
Filed under: Intelligent Sensors, environmental monitoring, 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.
Ravica SecurityProbe Picture Log
Filed under: Intelligent Sensors, Security Monitoring, SensorProbes, motion detector
Today, I started working with a software company who wanted to keep track of their employees that work very early or very late hours. In
general, it wasn’t a bad thing. They just wanted to make sure that the people coming into the building to work, were the people that should be. This company had already purchased monitoring and security equipment from us in the past.
This company just added a new international sales department. The work hours for the new employee were going to be 4:00am to 1:00pm. They wanted to know if they could utilize the picture log to record when people go in and out of the front door. They also wanted to limit the time frame for these pictures.
I did a bit of research and found out the answer was yes! You can set a time frame on the camera motion sensor and you can have the picture emailed or stored on the FTP server. Now, they would get an alert and a picture when someone came through the door.
At this point, they could figure out who came through the door. They then wanted to know if too many people were going through the door during the early morning hours. To do this, we used a Syslog/Eventlog application that allows you to set a threshold. Each time an image was taken with the camera, an alert would be sent to the Syslog/Eventlog manager. If a threshold was met, let say five, then an email would be sent to the security office.
The customer was excited and wanted to implement this in the coming weeks. I can’t wait to see how it comes out.
-Jimmy D
Monitoring for Smoke at a National Level
Filed under: Intelligent Sensors, Security Monitoring, SensorProbes, environmental monitoring, smoke detector
Monitoring the data room, your home, or for smoking in the boys room is just the beginning. The United States Government takes monitoring smoke and air seriously. 
Check out the smoke map maintained by the Interagency Real Time Smoke Monitoring web site. I drilled in on California and clicked on the center of the state. The air and smoke quality doesn’t look as good as other parts of the state.
Yosemite National Park
California likes their state parks. They have a web site showing off how they measure smoke ozone levels, particulate matter levels and more. The site provides air quality and smoke monitoring trends as well as web cameras. The cameras actually allow you to see the differences in air quality. I thought it was cool.
Ravica provides smoke detectors for $125.00 and security cameras on the SecurityProbe for $1,795.00. These probes also monitor temperature, humidity, water, etc., and it supports SNMP, so that you can trend the data over time.
Our services department can set you up with a monitoring web page like Yosemite. Just tell us what you need and we’ll help you get started.
- Mike
Securing your data center with Ravica equipment
Filed under: Data Center, Intelligent Sensors, Security Monitoring, SensorProbes
I started working with an interesting client today.
The company is a small hosting service provider with approximately 100 clients. What made this company different was that their clients would come on site quite often. Each client would has a key card; this identifies who is coming in and out of the server room. The problem is that the cards were being handed off to other employees. Since the company promised the utmost in security, this started to become a concern.
The goal of my client was to provide a video record of each entry. To accomplish this, I suggested that we add security sensors to each door. This would tell us when each and every person went through the door. Next, we added multiple security cameras, to record who was in the server room. The dry contact sensors would also give us a good idea of when the person left. The next hurdle was the lights, since they are off most of the time.
We used the Sensor Controlled Relay to turn the lights on and off in the room. This gave the security cameras more then enough light for recording. This was implemented via the alert from the trigger of the security sensor.
The Sensor Controlled Relay is easily controlled by any of Ravica’s extensive selection of sensors. The relay can provide automatic responses to sensor alerts. This made it easy to configure a scenario where the security sensor on the door was tripped and the lights were turned on.
In the end, the process worked perfectly. When a customer entered the server room, not only was their entry logged via the keypad, but they were also getting video record of that visit. We are currently working on providing a common interface between all of the data sources.
- JimmyD
Water leak monitoring helps avoid mold
Filed under: Intelligent Sensors, environmental monitoring, humidity monitoring, water leak monitoring
Water leaks and or high humidity can lead to mildew and mold. The results after prolonged exposure can mean premature paint problems, structural issues and health problems, not to mention the stink!
We can’t depend on our noses to do your mildew monitoring because we can’t be in a dozen places at once all the time.
There is an easier way. Our water sensor can monitor for water leaks. The cable for the actual sensor can be up to 100 feet away from the BitSight. Because its unique design, it can be used to notify when water levels drop too low as well.
The humidity sensors we manufacture can be run 1,000 feet and fished through walls to measure humidity in air ducts, crawl spaces, etc. As a bonus, the same unit performs temperature monitoring and measure as well.
Ravica has a complete line of intelligent environmental monitoring solutions to help protect your business from a environmental disaster. All units support SNMP and send alerts in numerous formats.
- Mike
SNMP support for the SecurityProbe allows secure data center monitoring
Filed under: Data Center, Intelligent Sensors, Security Monitoring, environmental monitoring, power monitoring, smoke detector, temperature monitoring, water leak monitoring
In 2004, the IETF officially recognized SNMP v3, as defined by RFC 3411–RFC 3418, as the current standard version of the Simple Network Management Protocol. SNMP v2, although being a highly competent and widely used protocol, was severly lacking in the areas of security and remote configuration. Thus, SNMP v3 was born.
SNMP v3 added some much needed security features, like ensuring message integrity, verifying that the message came from a valid source with authentication, and packet encryption to ensure that messages aren’t being disseminated by unauthorized sources.
Because of its enhanced security features, SNMP v3 quickly found itself a requirement for many government and secure corporate projects. Since 2004, SNMP v3 has found itself a home in most networks with any sort of security requirements.
That is why the Ravica SecurityProbe line of SensorProbes supports SNMP v3. From within the Settings tab, simply select SNMP under the Connectivity header to the left. You will see the screen below.
From here you can select the type of security features required:
- No Authentication
- Authentication Only
- Authentication & Encryption
Enter your desired password, choose your authentication protocol and access privilege, then it’s off to the races. Now all of your SNMP information will be sent/polled from the SecurityProbe in version 3.
This is a highly popular feature amoung SecurityProbe users. Hopefully, if you didn’t already know it was there, you will find it valuable to impliment in your network. It is now as easy as ever to keep your physical data room details secure.
~ Jon Mills
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