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Ravica Environmental Monitors Begin Where Mayberry Ends

Angela — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:08:38 +0000

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.

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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Ravica’s Motion Sensor Cameras Prevent Tremendous Drain on Networks

Angela — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:11:23 +0000

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 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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Complete Environment Monitoring

Mike Allen — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:03:54 +0000

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

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

Ravica SecurityProbe Picture Log

JimmyD — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:22:19 +0000

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

Camera’s lend environmental reassurance

Mike Allen — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:32:17 +0000

When it comes to monitoring the data center environmental conditions, we receive questions which pretty much cover the gamut. From staples, such as monitoring temperature or humidity, to measuring more difficult ambient conditions, such as airflow.

We also receive calls about security. This is something we can cover in a few different ways:

Using a contact security sensor on all doors or windows.
Motion detectors have been the topic of a few blogs.
We can install strobe lights that can indicate security breaches.
We can also install security cameras, which take pictures based on movement.

Pictures, like the ones above, can be emailed and/or archived, depending on the business needs. Sensitivity can also be adjusted.

Our equipment isn’t limited to specialized temperature and humidity monitoring. Please keep us in mind for security as well.

- Mike

Help desk: How sensitive is your motion detector sensor?

Jon Mills — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:47:52 +0000

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

Jon Mills — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:49:21 +0000

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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