I also learned that the LUX rating is extremely important when choosing a night vision camera.  The lower to zero the better. In other words, .001 is extremely good night vision. Configuration of the security dashboard is also important.  I was able to setup a security map which listed where I had placed our temperature monitors, humidity monitors, security cameras, water sensors, air flow sensors, smoke, dry contact and DC voltage sensors.  I got it all setup before I finished my morning coffee.

Believe it or not, dry contact sensors are popular especially in data room temperature monitoring.  The techs love the Security web interface.

If you want to learn more about the process I went through to set up our security monitoring system, give us a call.

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.

A Ravica team member just received an alert at work this past week from his home’s system.  He was notified of unauthorized access to the house.  Fortunately, the culprit was his extremely mischievous Dachshund.  But what if it hadn’t been?  Wouldn’t you want to know immediately if someone is in your home?

First alerts are extremely important to prevent serious damage.  An early alert from a smoke detector can make the difference between very minor damage and total destruction.  If caught early enough, proper authorities can be notified and damages can be minimized.

But what good is a smoke detector if you can’t hear its alarm?  What happens when your home is in Boca Raton, but you are on vacation in Venice?  Ravica’s devises are extremely versatile and can use various mediums to send alert notifications.  Just imagine having the freedom to travel knowing you will receive an instant alert about any power outages, smoke, or water leaks.  These alerts can be sent through email, mobile phone text, or Skype.

During the work day and during extended absences and vacations, you can feel confident that your property is protected, even without the Mayberry police force.

~Angela
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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 to locate all cameras that were also continually streaming images of hallways, stairwells, and other non-vital locations.  Armed with this new information, the Security Department reconfigured the cameras to prevent this from happening.  This simple change reduced the video traffic by over 25%, improved Internet connectivity speed, and decreased the amount of required storage on their servers.

Cameras from Ravica can be set to record only motion, thus preventing clogging the network with unnecessary stream.  Had my associate’s company initially set up Ravica cameras, they could have saved massive amounts of time, energy, money, and frustration.

Once a Ravica Universal Mount Camera is linked to a SecurityProbe, images can be stored in the integrated picture log.  Images can also be  sent via e-mail, FTP, MMS, or streamed directly to a mobile phone.   Security cameras just make sense, but only when they are working for you.  Cameras are only of benefit if they are recording what you want to see:  not empty hallways, but things like security breaches from the NetFlow Ninja.

~Angela
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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.

The Maps Tab allows you to upload site plans, building floor plans, or diagrams and then locate your sensors on the map.  That way, you can instantly see that the critical problem being reported on Temp 018 is in the Math Lab and not in the cafeteria.  Below is a screen shot of what this looks like to the user.  Note that the sensor statuses are color coded, green=good, red=problem so you can pinpoint issues and their location at a glance.

The map feature is helpful if you are using sensors in more localized applications as well.  For example, if you are monitoring a data center you could upload a diagram of your server cabinet  layout and then locate the  sensors graphically.  This would be helpful especially if the responsibility for addressing certain issues falls to maintenance staff that might not be as familiar with IT equipment.   Below is a screen shot of the diagram we use for the sensors in the Ravica server room.

There is no limit to the number of maps that you can load into you web interface, so you can use whatever formats work best for your application.

• Motion Detectors:  Increase the security of your valuable equipment and information.  The Ravica motion detectors are designed to be linked together so that you can link up to ten sensors on a single port.  This means that you can get excellent security coverage, even using the inexpensive BitSight2.  For some great information on setting up the motion detectors, check out Jon’s blogs here and here.
• AC Voltage Detectors:  Valuable for detecting brownouts or complete power outages.  Ravica can send email or text messages to immediately alert you to problems and allow for the quick recovery of power and the protection of data.
• Airflow Sensors:  Make sure that the ventilation equipment that is keeping your equipment cool doesn’t fail without your knowledge.  The SensorProbe provides airflow patterns in a graphical form that allows the user to detect changes that indicate fan failure or maintenance issues.
• Smoke Detectors:  All the Ravica SensorProbes and SecurityProbes can be integrated with SNMP-enabled smoke detectors.  Protect your property from smoke and fire even after business hours.
• Siren and Strobe Light:  Sometimes a stealth text message alert is just not enough.  Alert other employees of safety hazards with a siren and strobe light that can be triggered by the Alarm status on any of the sensors.

Ravica has SensorProbes that can support up to eight different sensors.  Whether you need to monitor a single room or a multi-story office building, we can help you set up an integrated environmental monitoring system that is scaled to your needs and can be configured and controlled from one easy to use web-interface.

If you’ve got questions, give us a call at 207-324-8173.

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.

The optimal humidity for wine storage is 55%-85%.   Maintaining the proper humidity is important primarily for protecting the integrity of the cork and preventing oxidization.  The last thing you want is to do is turn that expensive bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon into a lousy bottle of vinegar.

If you have a wine cellar, or are thinking of building one, you are going to want to have a quality environmental monitoring system in place.  This is true whether the wine cellar is in your home, your restaurant, or at a commercial winery.  The Ravica line of SensorProbes, temperature and humidity sensors, and sensor controlled relays can help you monitor the conditions in your wine cellar, even if you are away from your home or business.  Ravica’s easily configured web-interface can be set up to automatically turn on  air conditioning units and humidifiers to maintain the optimum temperature and humidity levels for your wine collection.  You can also be notified if your equipment is not operating properly by setting up email or text alerts that are sent when the specified temperature and humidity thresholds are surpassed.

If you need help designing an environmental monitoring system that will meet your wine storage needs, give us a call.  We’d love to hear about your project and help you protect your inventory.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at Ravica!  And enjoy your glass of Beaujolais Nouveau this year, it is supposed to be a very good vintage.

• Monitoring for water leaks
• Voltage monitoring for electrical brownouts or complete electrical loss
• Motion detection and automated photo delivery
• Airflow monitoring

The Ravica solutions include appliances which support all of the above intelligent sensors and include SNMP access to the data. A web interface to configure or review the data is also available.

And in case you are curious on where the expression “soup to nuts” originates from. I found this interesting.

- Mike

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.

When you think about it, there really isn’t a location in a healthcare environment where temperature monitoring is not a major issue. From monitoring the temperature in a patient room for their comfort and safety to the temperature of the coolers that store medications and vaccines, temperature monitoring is  a life-or-death concern. The Ravica line of SensorProbes can help with the temperature monitoring needs of  any hospital or clinic.   Some specific locations where the sensor probes would be useful are:

• Patient Rooms
• Operating Rooms
• Blood and Tissue Banks
• Cold Rooms in Pharmacies
• Vaccine Storage
• Hospital Data Centers

The BitSight monitors and temperature sensors can be scaled to a single room or linked together for whole ward monitoring depending on the specific needs of the facility. Instant notification of a potential problem can be  sent to nursing staff and corrected before critical thresholds are passed. In the healthcare environment having a reliable environmental monitoring system in place is literally a life-saver.

~ Jessica

Although the Ravica line of environmental monitoring solutions are typically used in more corporate type scenarios, like monitoring data center hot spots or watching for rising temperatures in walk-in coolers and freezers, there are many other more domestic uses as well. After all, if we can monitor the humidity in your walk-in humidor, then we can certainly monitor the temperature in your house. Now, most likely you aren’t just going to litter your living room with BitSights and single port temperature and humidity sensors, however, basements in the northern regions, even if properly insulated, can get extremely cold. The last thing anyone wants are burst pipes and a flooded basement in the middle of a nor’easter.

Placing even a single BitSight2 and a temperature sensor in your basement can make the difference between knowing when things are going from bad to worse, while still being able to do something about it, and the alternative (let’s not even think about your stored baby booties and family photos covered in puddles of freezing water). Having a home temperature monitoring system in place is especially important for anyone that travels extensively or maybe for those lucky enough to live in warmer climates during the winter. In the grand scheme of things, the BitSight2 is a very cost efficient solution, when considering the damage that can be done by the extreme cold many of us experience year to year.

~ Jon Mills
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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