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February 27, 2009
• Vol.31 Issue 9
Page(s) 21 in print issue
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Keeping An Eye On The Data Center
AVTECH’s Room Alert 26W Monitors Environmental Threats
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 A water leak from the next room causes an entire server rack to short circuit and go down. Temperatures skyrocket after an air-conditioner failure, and the server’s processors overheat and hard drives fail. A disgruntled employee knows which disks to destroy that will cause the company the most harm. The list of what can go wrong in a data center can make the most seasoned admin wince. If and when such disasters happen, the costs to fix and replace data center servers and infrastructure in a small to midsized enterprise can easily total a few hundred thousand dollars.
Short of having someone on hand to constantly monitor and watch the data center around the clock, what is an admin to do? The solution is a monitoring system that is comprehensive, reliable, and easy to use and alerts the appropriate IT individuals by sending a message to PCs and mobile devices. Such a solution is what AVTECH (401/847-6700; www.avtech.com) aims to offer with its Room Alert 26W.
“By taking a proactive monitoring approach to these threatening environment concerns, a business will save money over the long term by reducing risk and avoiding disasters,” says Michael Sigourney, founder and senior product specialist for AVTECH. “Room Alert products represent a type of proactive insurance that helps an organization avert critical risks that can strike at any time and often without notice until the damage has occurred.”
 Important Alerts
The Room Alert 26W is designed to monitor a data center’s temperatures, power consumption, moisture, and humidity. Its sensors can also detect movement, which allows it to be used as an intrusion detection device. When sensor thresholds are detected, such as when temperatures rise to a certain point or humidity reaches a level that might signify that there is a water leak, emails or text messages are sent to PCs, cell phones, and other mobile devices. Alerts can also be sent to a list of people simultaneously.
“Because the average temperature [in data centers] will rise from the standard 68 [degrees Fahrenheit] to over 85 F in about 8.6 minutes when a problem arises from, for example, a power outage or an air-conditioning failure, the staff in charge must be alerted and take immediate action,” Sigourney says. “With the critical shutdown threshold for most equipment is universally agreed to be at 85 F, the best response would be to use the automatic server shut-down capabilities included with AVTECH’s PageR Enterprise software to eliminate risk by shutting down the most expensive and critical hardware when extreme conditions occur.”
Room Alert 26W, which is AVTECH’s high-end system for IT monitoring applications, also offers a Web browser interface for accessing current sensor data in real time. The Web interface also allows for changes to the system’s settings to be made remotely with an Internet connection.
Going Where Only Wireless Can
 A key feature that distinguishes the Room Alert 26W from the competition is its wireless sensors. Instead of having to run cables from the system to where you need to place the sensors, the Room Alert 26W’s Wireless Sensor Hubs, or WiSH, communicate data wirelessly—indoors and outdoors—up to 250 feet away. This enables sensors to be more easily placed in hard-to-access places, such as inside server racks, on top of walls, or other areas where cable connections are difficult to access, Sigourney says.
“Room Alert 26W’s ability to monitor these environments wirelessly breaks the tradition where managers and staff sometimes spent hours running cables from remote sensors to a monitoring device [and creates] a less time-consuming and less costly installation, while also allowing monitoring in places where running cables would otherwise be impossible,” Sigourney says.
The wireless feature is an example of how AVTECH’s engineers have adapted to the needs of data centers in a vendor market that has seen its ups and downs. AVTECH, for example, has emerged from the dot-com bust early in the last decade to now command a leading share in the market, Sigourney says. “As the computer industry changed and entered the dot-com years, many organizations tried to develop network-wide monitoring software products. This created an extremely competitive market where only the biggest of vendors . . . could get exposure,” Sigourney says. “Although we had a more cost-effective and easier-to-use product, smaller vendors like AVTECH were not then able to compete with their marketing, financial resources, distribution, and media influence.”
Prior to the dot-com crash, the vendor market was also extremely crowded, Sigourney says. “It was a tough time, as almost 1,500 vendors were trying to gain market success in the area of network-wide monitoring,” Sigourney says. “Eventually, the bubble burst, and only about a dozen key products have remained as viable solutions on a worldwide basis.”
The Cost Factor
Data center managers usually have an idea of how much it would cost to repair the damage that a catastrophic event might cause. Yet, the additional cost of downtime for an enterprise that might cease to function due to a server outage is but one of the other major risks that a monitoring system such as the Room Alert 26W can help to mitigate, says Rob Enderle, an analyst for the Enderle Group. There are other major risk factors to take into consideration, Enderle continues.
“Particularly with moisture, you are talking [about] a high-voltage environment, and there could also be safety issues [such] as technicians who rush in to address a failure but don’t yet realize that the cause could be life-threatening. [Additionally], the tendency for laid-off workers to act out by doing damage to a firm’s infrastructure goes up significantly, and a disgruntled worker gaining access to a data center could, in a very short period of time, do an impressive amount of damage,” Enderle says. “All of this makes a product like the Room Alert 26W a true bargain because, in one offering, if deployed correctly, it can protect against a broad spectrum of very costly threats to the data center and, perhaps, assure the survival of the company that purchases it.”  by Bruce Gain
Room Alert 26W Features & Specs
• Rack Mounted Size: 1.75 x 19 x 3.75 inches (HxWxD)
• Rack Mounted Weight: 6 pounds, 3 ounces
• Operating Temperature: -40 to 185 F (-40 to 85 C)
• Power Source (Included): 5VDC 1A Adapter
• Power Compatibility: 110/240VAC, 50/60Hz, RoHS
• Built-In Uninterruptable Power Supply: Yes
• Ethernet Port & Speed: RJ-45, 10/100Mbps BaseTX
• Ethernet Link & Activity Indicator: Yes
• Ethernet Cable (Included): 10 feet, red, snagless |
Contact
AVTECH Room Alert 26W
(401) 847-6700
www.avtech.com
Description: Monitors IT facilities for environmental factors, such as temperature, humidity, and movement, and sends alerts to admins’ PCs and mobile devices if any factor reaches an unsafe level.
Interesting Fact: The Room Alert 26W’s sensors use the low-power ZigBee wireless standard to monitor humidity, heat, power, and other data points. |
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