However, a web-based system that can monitor for changes in temperature, humidity, airflow, as well as the presence of water, smoke and motion, can be extremely valuable. To demonstrate just how valuable, I thought I would put together a list of the top three reason why a web-based system is more convenient and cost effect for many home and business applications.

1. Remote system management
For many of our customers, the BitSight and SecurityProbe line of monitors are perfect for collocation centers or off site installations, where they may house valuable equipment, like servers and networking hardware, away from their place of daily operations. It is not always convenient for a network administrator to visit a location that might be hours away (or perhaps even on the other side of the country). With a web-based system, monitoring temperature and humidity readings becomes as easy as visiting a web page.

2. SNMP support
Regardless of what network monitoring applications you use, SNMP is one of the most universally supported protocols available. With complete SNMP support, the Ravica line of intelligent sensors can be monitored using the same tools that you already use to monitor the health of your servers and other networking hardware. With enough expertise, configuration commands can even be issued manually via SNMP or using other SNMP configuration tools.

3. Many sensors on a single user interface
With traditional temperature sensors, and the like, there is nothing to report back to. You have your sensor, with the reading, maybe displayed on an attached gauge or screen. If you have multiple sensors that means physically visiting each one to take your measurements. However, with a web-based approach, we provide several sensors readings all displayed in a central interface. There is no longer a need to visit each sensors. Even though they may be physically placed in five separate locations, the readings can all be found from your desk chair.

Summary
So when considering any form of environmental monitoring system, whether you are monitoring temperature, humidity, airflow or smoke, make sure to decide well in advance if a web-based system is necessary. If so, make sure to take a look at Ravica’s environmental monitoring solutions and our line of intelligent sensors. You won’t be disappointed!

~ Jon Mills
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• 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.

Winter requires some special preparation for the inside of your facility as well.  With snow and ice  comes the threat of water pipes bursting and power outages.  Make sure that your facility is protected by having a back-up generator in place.  You should also be sure that the main water pipes and any pipes that are running along uninsulated walls have been winterized.

You also might want to think about installing an environmental monitoring system that can automatically alert you to any water leaks or other cold-weather problems that might occur.  Ravica’s line of Sensor Probes and plug-and-play Intelligent Sensors can help to prevent major weather-related damage to your property and data.  Whether it is a water sensor to monitor for leaking pipes; a temperature sensor to make sure that your data center is cool enough and your employees are warm enough; or a camera to monitor the street outside to see if the snow plows have shown up yet, you can create the system that meets your needs this winter and will work for you during the rest of the year too.

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.

Let’s take a look at a list of specifications to consider when choosing hardware:

• Never needs Calibration
• Measurement range Celsius:-55°C to +75°C.
• Measurement resolution Celsius: 1°C increments.
• Measurement accuracy Celsius: ±0.5°C accuracy from -10°C to +75°C.
• Measurement range Fahrenheit: -67°F to +167°F.
• Measurement resolution Fahrenheit: 1°F increments.
• Measurement accuracy Fahrenheit: ±0.9°F accuracy from +14°F to +167°F.
• Communications cable: UTP CAT 5 wire.
• Sensor type: semiconductor microprocessor controlled.
• Power source: powered by the sensorProbe. No additional power needed.
• Power Consumption: Typical 10.70 mWatt, 2.14mA
• sensorProbe auto detects the presence of the temperature sensor.
• Measurement rate: one reading every second.
• Up to 2 temperature sensors per sensorProbe2, 8 per sensorProbe8 and cameraProbe8.
• Full autosense including disconnect alarm.
• SNMP OID so that data can be collected over the network, using a tool like Denika.
• Water resistant.

Loaded with the above, the sensor can monitor everything from freezers to swimming pool temperatures.

Hopefully this will help you create a list of features for your temperature monitoring solution. With the right features, you can even add this equipment to your network map. Contact Ravica if you need assistance.

- Mike

Seeing all the news footage of flooded streets made me think about how  important it is to be prepared for water infiltration due to flooding.  According to the Red Cross, floods are among the most frequent and costly natural disasters, causing more than 90% of the damage related to natural disasters.  On average, floods cause more than $4 billion in damages worldwide, per year.  Proper preparation is equally important for businesses and homeowners.

There are a lot  of preventative measures that can be taken to avoid water damage, such as  moving vital electronics to higher levels and raising mechanical equipment off the floor.  But what if a flood occurs after hours or while a homeowner is away?  How can you make sure that your equipment is as safe as possible?  One way is to have a water detection sensor in place that is connected to your network and set up to alert you via SNMP or email, when a water leak is detected. With automatic notification, you can get to the problem fast or at least call someone to check on the situation.

Ravica provides water detection solutions that can be scaled equally well for a large data center or a single family home. If you’ve got a location where flood damage is a danger, we’d love to help you design a water leak monitoring system that can help protect your data and valuables.

~ Jessica

• 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

In a previous life, I worked in the building maintenance department at a small university on the west coast.  My job was basically to take all the calls from across the campus when stuff went wrong, and then send someone to fix the problem.

One of the frequent calls I received had to do with the walk-in coolers and freezers in the main dining hall.  It seemed like those things were always going down, and the dining hall had hundreds of hungry college students to serve three times a day — this was a major problem!

With no equipment set up to monitor the temperature and humidity in the coolers, the detection of a problem was left in the hands of the already busy kitchen staff.  By the time the problem was reported and we were able to make a service call, there was a real possibility of major food loss and substantial cost to the university.  If there had been a monitoring system, like the Ravica BitSight2, with a couple of temperature and humidity sensors installed, we would have been able to set the high and low temperature thresholds,  received notifications via email or SMS, and fixed any problem before it reached a critical state.  That would have saved time, money, and lowered the collective blood pressure of both the kitchen and maintenance staff.

There are lots of other situations where Ravica environmental sensors would have been useful for facility management, but I’ll save those stories for another blog.

~Jessica

Prevention
It all starts at the building planning level. Having an initial survey, to know if your building is in or near a flood zone, sounds like a no brainer, but it’s surprising how many people I speak with on a weekly basis that are in the heart of a flood zone with no water monitoring system in place. Once you know the situation your server room is in, it is important to take the necessary precautions by having the proper drainage installed, including a sump pump. This protects you in the event flooding becomes present.

Awareness
The second part to the equation is being aware of what is going on in your data center. We’ve already discussed the security side of data center awareness by monitoring your data center with cameras, security sensors for doors and windows, as well as motion detectors. However, as I mentioned, knowing of any present water leaks is equally important.

Placing a water leak sensor in trouble spots can be incredibly informative. Where are these trouble spots? Typically, network administrators want to watch for water leaks, first and foremost, directly beneath server racks. Obviously, we hope we are already aware of any present water before it gets anywhere near the server racks, but this gives us the last ditch baseline type of alert – the dam is breaking (no pun intended) and something needs to be fixed immediately. After we have our racks covered, we want to put water sensors near any nearby windows, doors, AC units or HVAC systems, as well as any open ventilation.

The Ravica line of SensorProbes offers key alerting features like email and text alerts, even alerting via Skype. Using the Sensor Controled Relay, a user could even turn on a sump pump system when a water sensor goes into alert.

So, while it is important to keep tabs on the temperature and humidity of your data room, it is also important to make sure you protect the expensive equipment that occupies that facility from water damage.

~ Jon Mills
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