Posts tagged Threats

Environmental hazards and their costs

The most common threats to the environment server rooms are temperature, humidity, water leaks human error, intrusion, vibration and power loss. Many of these threats, such as temperature and humidity, combined, are more difficult to monitor the environment and strengthens the need for an automated and sophisticated system.

Temperature

Temperature is the main threat to the environment of computer hardware. The generally accepted, is the ideal temperature is 68-74 degrees Fahrenheit (20-24 degrees Celsius).

Excessive heat causes deteriorating network performance and downtime. As the temperature rises, a cooling fan is working harder to cool the Central Processing Unit (CPU). Continuous overloading caused the fan to fail, leading to a warming of the machine. A machine is shut down when it reaches an unsafe temperature, to prevent permanent damage. An administrator must be removed then, day or night, go to the machine and restart it after it has cooled. Consequently Hosted Services by a machine down are not available until it is restarted, it may take minutes or hours. If the server hosts critical services (eg e-commerce, user validation, e-mail), which are not distributed backup servers, you can lose income, can not log the users are, and communications are interrupted. If the shutdown is not done correctly, data can be lost.

Excessive heat and rapid temperature changes and damage to equipment. Rapid may increase with increasing temperature, humidity, while the rapid drop of water can cause moist air to condense on equipment. Together, heat and moisture accelerate the establishment of the materials in microchips, used to break motherboards and hard drives, which one is premature aging. In the worst case, a machine will not shut down when the temperature exceeds safe levels, and circuits are damaged. Ultimately, heat damaged equipment to be replaced, increasing the cost of maintenance of the network.

Controlling temperature is more important and more difficult because of changes in equipment design and greater use of network services. New equipment is running hot because it runs faster and more work. Moreover, other circuits closer and closer together trapping heat in a smaller space. Smaller units also means that more devices can be placed in the same room, usually packed closely together. The increase in the density of devices leads to an increase in the amount of heat dissipation in a rack cabinet. Increased network usage increases and heat, change of use as in the course of the day, the temperature changes and the need for cooling. For networks, the capacity of almost 24 hours a day to operate every day of the year, there is little, if any, time to cool down the machines in order.

Humidity

If the temperature is 68-74 degrees Fahrenheit (20-24 degrees Celsius), the relative humidity (ie within the amount of water in the air) between 40% and 50%.

A high humidity, the following problems in the server room:

Continuing low humidity, the following problems:

Water leaks

Proper planning is moving away from devices that could burst the water pipes, basement, that might flood, or roofs that could pass. However, there are other water leaks that are difficult to discern and prove. Ventilation systems can blocked it to condensation when warm, moist air is not removed quickly. When vents are located above or behind machinery, condensation can form small puddles that nobody sees. Standalone air conditioning systems are particularly susceptible to water leaks, if condensation is not removed correctly. Even small amounts of water in the vicinity of air intakes to increase humidity and servers fill with moisture.

In addition, water from small leak can travel for long distances behind walls and continue for a long time before anyone notices it. Server room with raised floors are particularly vulnerable. All cables and wires for an entire network are under floor tiles. While this approach has not sure cords unplugged accidentally, it is the control of their physical condition makes it difficult. Cables can be soaked in water for a long time before anyone notices. This situation breaks down isolation and the loss of insulation causes signal leakage and performance degradation.

Human Error

Administrators / staff can unwittingly create environment problems in server rooms from:

Similarly, cleaning crews sometimes close doors, which should be left open for ventilation, thus the increase of temperature and air flow reduced.

Intrusion

Invaders, such as disgruntled employees, industrial spies, often strike at the most critical vulnerabilities that: the physical devices, storing and accessing data. The small and delicate nature of modern computer technology makes it easy to damage or steal, hard drives are compact enough to put in a briefcase, backpack, pocket or purse.

Less scary, but just as potentially harmful animal intruders. Rodents, insects, birds and even larger animals have found their way into sensitive areas to wreak chaos on the equipment. Tiny contaminants, such as fur, dust and dander can, component failure. mice and rats to chew through cable.

Vibration

Too much movement loosens connections within the server housing crash, boards and chips.

Vibration can also damage the hard disk, which rotates at extremely high speeds. As can be moved or pushed the plate, where the information is stored cause, and the head that reads the information to connect physically, so that scratches that damage permanently the drive.

In general, vibrations coming from worldly sources: where the halls or walkways, or be moved or pushed to close. Good planning can keep vibrations to a minimum, but the IT staff should still monitor the situation. Some vibrations as generated by a failing air conditioner, actually serve as a warning. Most machines vibrate more worse than performance, tracking variations in equipment vibration is an important means for predicting failure.

Power failure

Power outages, brown outs and voltage dips and spikes are big problems for computing equipment. A simple hiccups in performance levels, let alone a lightning strike may fail servers. In the best-case scenarios, the cost of this precious time before the restart. In the worst-case scenarios circuit can be damaged beyond repair and needs replacement.

Weaknesses of current monitoring practices

monitor in a typical company, three groups of the environment: network administrators, security personnel, maintenance and facility staff. Network administrators often rely on a single thermometer and subjective notions of “comfort” to control the temperature of the server rooms and data centers. In addition, monitor security personnel and building maintenance services outside of the server rooms. These three groups usually try to coordinate their efforts, but they keep separate systems and practices. Ultimately, network administrators are primarily responsible for the protection of the hardware.

This approach has the following weaknesses:

Effective monitoring of the server environment system addresses the shortcomings of the current practice of the staff monitor the environment.

ENVIROMUX Server Environment Monitoring Solutions

NTI offers two server environment monitoring solutions that ENVIROMUX-SEMS-16 and ENVIROMUX-MINI. Both devices monitor critical environmental conditions (such as temperature, humidity and water leakage) that could network components in a server room to destroy. When a sensor exceeds a threshold, the system selected administrators / staff via e-mail, SNMP traps, web-page alerts and a visual indicator (LED alerts). The systems connect to your IP network so they can be configured and monitored from any workstation with a Web browser.

Both systems offer the following advantages:

ENVIROMUX-Sam-16

The support ENVIROMUX-SEMS-16, the following sensors / devices:

The support ENVIROMUX-SEMS-16, the following headlines:

ENVIROMUX-MINI

The MINI-ENVIROMUX houses the following sensors / devices:

The MINI-ENVIROMUX supports the following headlines: