Data center monitoring gets simpler with the new PoE BitSight2

March 17, 2011 by · Comment
Filed under: Data Center, environmental monitoring, Ravica News 

Rear view of the BitSight2It has been a long time coming, but due to customer demand, Ravica is pleased to announce the availability of the PoE (IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet) BitSight2 sensorprobe. Now all of your environmental monitoring needs can be met without even needing a separate power source.

That’s not to say you can’t still use the existing method of powering the device as the BS2 will retain the internal 7.5 VDC power supply and is a “Powered Device” so the power to the unit can be supplied from either the PoE or from the 7.5 VDC power adapter, acting as backup power in case of a PoE power supply failure.

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Comparison of nBox and nProbe for NetFlow

July 19, 2010 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: nBox, NetFlow probes, Ravica News 

Today’s business needs translate into massive amounts of traffic across networks, demanding mechanisms to maintain the data.  In response, Cisco created NetFlow, a technology that monitors and records all traffic passing through the supported NetFlow router/switch.  NetFlow has become the standard in network traffic monitoring by IT professionals, and fully utilizing it requires specialized technology.

nProbe

To support this business need, we recently expanded the Ravica product line to include new hardware and software. Read more

Ravica Rolls with the Punches

July 12, 2010 by · Comment
Filed under: environmental monitoring, Ravica News 

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.

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Ravica adds NetFlow probes to product line-up

May 26, 2010 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: nBox, NetFlow probes, Ravica News 

This month, Ravica branched out from our environmental monitoring roots and added a new product line of NetFlow probes to our inventory.  These include two hardware options, the nBox and the nTap, as well as a software NetFlow solution, the nProbe.  For today’s blog, I’ll focus in on the nBox.

NetFlow is a network protocol that was developed by Cisco Systems to collect IP traffic information and it has become the standard in network traffic monitoring by IT professionals.  For more information on NetFlow, check out this blog on NetFlow basics at Systrax.com.  For those without NetFlow capable routers or switches, fully utilizing NetFlow requires a probe which is generally attached to a PC and a software tool to capture the network information and put it into a usable form.
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~Jessica
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Virtually unlimited expandability for the SecurityProbe . . . connect up to 600 sensors to one unit!

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.

~Jessica
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