Environmental threats and their costs
The most common threats to the environment of the server room temperature, humidity, water leaks, human error, intrusion, vibration, and power outages. Many of these threats, such as temperature and humidity are related in any harsh environment monitoring and reinforces the need for an automated, sophisticated.
Temperature
Temperature is the main threat to the environment> Computer hardware. The ideal temperature is generally accepted between 68 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit (20-24 degrees Celsius).
Excessive heat performance and reduce network downtime causes. As the temperature increases, a body cooling fan works harder to cool the central processing unit (CPU). continuous overload causes the fan to fail, leading to an overheating engine. A car stops when the temperature is reached at risk in order to prevent permanent damage. AThe administrator must be shifted, by day or night, go to the machine and restart when it cools. The services are hosted by a machine down is not available until it is restarted, which may last minutes or hours. If the host server services (eg e-commerce, user validation, e-mail) will not be distributed backup servers, the revenue lost, users can not login and communications are interrupted. If deactivation is not done correctly, data can belost.
excessive heat and temperature changes also damage to equipment. The rapid increase in temperature, moisture can, while a rapid drop of water can cause moist air condenses on the equipment. Together, the heat and moisture accelerate the decomposition of the materials used in microchips, motherboards, hard drives, which are called premature aging. In the worst case, a car turns off when the temperature exceeds a safe level, and circuits have been damaged. Eventually, the heat-damaged equipmentshould be replaced, increasing the cost of maintaining the network.
Check the temperature is more important and more difficult because of changes in equipment design and increased use of the network. New equipment runs hotter because it is faster and more work. There are also several circuits ever closer together, capture heat in a smaller space. Smaller units also means that more equipment can be placed in the same room, usually packed tightly together. Theincreased density of the material causes an increase in the amount of heat in a rack. Increased networking also increases heat, so that the use of level change during the day, if the temperature and the need for refrigeration. For networks operating near capacity 24 hours a day, every day of the year, there is little or no time for the cooling machines.
Humidity
When the temperature is between 68 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit (20-24 degreesCelsius), relative humidity (ie the amount of water in air) between 40% and 50%.
High humidity can produce the following problems in the server room:
Condensation - Condensation occurs when the humidity is too high or if there is a rapid decrease in temperature. The condensed water that causes equipment corrosion, shorts or deposits of dirt and minerals that affect equipment. The moisture absorption circuit expand and contract with achanges in relative humidity. Expansion and contraction of these records may break the microelectronic circuits and edge connectors. Finally, the heat of condensation increases the levels. The deposits of dirt and minerals act as thermal insulation in equipment falling and prevents the spread in the air.
Schimmel - persistent humidity above 60% and higher temperatures encourage growth of fungi. These pollute the air with dirt and spores that hide the airflow of the machine and promotethermal insulation and condensation. They also retain moisture and promote corrosion, which can damage the circuits and motherboards. Some fungi "eat" plastic fiber (eg polyester) and PVC, a phenomenon in which the distribution of fungal material used in these places. Most electronic equipment, some materials such as PVC PVC electric insulation.
Low humidity can produce the following problems:
ESD - Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) is in a drybecause there is enough water to neutralize the charge build-up. ESD interfere intermittently with the hardware and can damage your system or temporary malfunctions.
Breakdown of plastic - the distribution of plastics in some areas of low humidity, which is another form of premature aging.
Water losses
Good planning moved equipment away from water pipes that may burst, the wine cellars, which may flood or roof leaks. There are other losses of waterdifficult to recognize and detect. blocked ventilation can cause condensation when warm moist air is not quickly removed. If the ventilation openings are located above or behind the machines, condensation can form small puddles that nobody sees. autonomous air conditioners are particularly vulnerable to losses of condensate, if not completely removed. Even small amounts of water near the outlet humidity to increase server and fill with fluid.
Furthermore, water from the hose of small lossescan travel long distances and stay behind the walls for a long time before anyone noticed. server rooms with raised floors are particularly vulnerable. All cables and wires for a network are hidden under the floor. While this approach keeps accidentally cables connected securely, making it difficult to monitor their physical state. The cables can immerse in water for a long time before anyone notices. This isolation is broken, andloss of insulation causes signal loss and performance degradation.
Human error
Managers / staff can do without knowing the environmental problems in server rooms from:
Setting the heating or air conditioning while working in the server room and forgot to reset it when they leave
Entering opening boxes "temporary" and forget them, which blocks the airflow to move
Moving equipment, airflow in the room and leads to changesHotspots
Beat the equipment, the wind changes direction deflectors and causes discharge of a machine to blow into a different machine
Installation of new equipment, not knowing which is more heat than the old system creates
In the absence of the panels with empty boxes empty statements, which inhibits air flow upwards.
Cleaning crews may close the doors be left open for ventilation, making the temperature and reducingairflow.
Intrusion
Invaders, such as disgruntled employees, industrial spies, often hitting the most critical but vulnerable: the physical devices to store and access data. The small and delicate nature of modern computer equipment are easy to steal or damage, hard drives are compact enough to carry in a briefcase, backpack, pocket or purse.
Less sinister but just as potentially dangerous animal intruders.Rodents, insects, birds and larger animals have found their way in very sensitive areas to create problems with the equipment. Tiny impurities, such as fur, dust, hair and can lead to component failure. Mice and rats to chew through the cable.
Vibration
Too much traffic connections within the loose structure server unseating boards and chips.
Vibration can also damage the hard drive that runs at extremely high speeds. As can be bumped or movedleading to the plateau, where information is stored, and the head, which reads the information to be physically close, scratches permanently damage the disc.
In general, the vibrations from sources mundane: too close to the halls or galleries, or is moved or bumped. Good planning can take to minimize the shock, but the IT staff must continue to monitor the situation. Some vibrations, like those generated by an air conditioner in the absence, in fact as warnings. Moremachine vibrates more as performance worsens, so tracking fluctuations in the unit, the vibration is an important tool for predicting failure.
Power failure
Blackout, brown outs and voltage drops and peaks represent serious problems for computer equipment. Hiccups A simple power level, not to mention lightning server may fail. In the best case scenario, this takes valuable time before rebooting . In the worst case scenario, electronicsirreparably damaged and must be replaced.
Weaknesses of current monitoring practices
In a typical business environment following three groups: network administrators, security personnel, maintenance and personnel. Network administrators often rely on a single thermometer and the subjective perception of "comfort" to the control centers of the temperature of server rooms and data. In addition, security personnel and maintenance facility monitoroutside the server room. These three groups usually attempt to coordinate their efforts, but they are separate systems and practices. Ultimately, network administrators are primarily responsible for hardware protection.
This approach has the following shortcomings:
Not the recognition of all threats - Damage caused by the environment may be subtle, invisible, or attributed to other causes. Accelerated aging equipment from heat or moisture over the years and isoften dismissed as a natural process (ie, "equipment but plays). condensation, rust, heat damage and is usually hidden in the machine managers face '.
Inconsistency - Administrators control room thermometers only when the environment is hot or cold for them. Unfortunately, "feeling the temperature of a" comfortable and humidity varies from person to person, so problems are not always recognized.
Gaps in monitoring - environmental threats occur 24 hours a day,seven days a week. But administrators are not always in the technical field, especially during evenings and weekends. Depending on staffing levels and schedules, the server room environments are uncontrolled to seventy percent of the time during an average week.
gaps Liability - Another difference is the result of shared responsibility. water leaks and intrusion are monitored by maintenance personnel, security officers and network. Often a group will not receive aarea because he thinks that another group already controls this area. Identify a group or an accident, but not all the knowledge of other groups. Consequently, vulnerabilities and potential problems have never been investigated for development until it is too late.
Inability to track changes in the environment - temperature and humidity to increase and decrease. Without a record of conditions, administrators can not identify the problems caused by these changes. Often these problems remain for days ormonths, while time and money wasted investigating false causes and solutions.
Focus on disasters, not the everyday problems - current practices to prevent disasters such as broken water pipes or power failure that closed the air conditioning systems. But they do little to protect against threats that slowly damage the hardware or the promotion of preventive maintenance, such as the detection of gradual temperature increase is necessary for fans or air filters to clean.
Effective serverenvironmental monitoring system focuses on weaknesses in the practice of personnel to monitor the environment.
Server Environment Monitoring Solutions ENVIROMUX
NTI offers two server environment monitoring, ENVIROMUX-SEMS-16 and MINI-ENVIROMUX. Both units monitor critical environmental factors (such as temperature, humidity and water leaks) the network components capable of destroying in a server room. When a sensormore than one adjustable threshold, the system will notify selected administrators / staff e-mail, SNMP traps, alerts, web pages and a visual indicator (LED). The systems connect to the IP network, so they can be configured and controlled from anywhere with a web browser.
Both systems offer the following advantages:
Costs under control - in a stable environment, equipment lasts longer, and less material is damaged and needs replacing. Typically, the savings of not havingreplacement of equipment that can pay the cost of control.
Increase lead-time is a problem - the former sounds audible, staff can quickly resolve the problem before a disaster. For example, a loss, so soon caught, will not turn into a flood.
Reduce downtime - Hardware hosted for the recommended environmental conditions is more efficient, but also stop less frequently. Consequently, workers remain productive and e-commerce sitescontinue to generate income.
Log in environmental data for better understanding - To accommodate maintain a stable server, administrators must maintain accurate records of what happened. Registration is also crucial for the study of problems.
ENVIROMUX-SEMS-16
The ENVIROMUX-SEMS-16 supports the following sensors / devices:
Three internal sensors: temperature, humidity and power
16 external configurable sensors (eg temperature, humidity,temperature / humidity, liquid detection, smoke detection, glass break, vibration and motion sensors) via RJ45 connectors.
8 dry contact input devices such as door contact sensors, through the pair of terminal connectors
4 dry contact output devices, such as fans and closing the door, through the pair of terminal connectors
The ENVIROMUX-SEMS-16 supports the following reports:
network messages via SNMP
E-mail via SMTP
Messages for the Web interface
A flashing LED
SMS messages via external GSMmodem
ENVIROMUX-MINI
The MINI-ENVIROMUX offers the following sensors / devices:
2 Temperature, humidity or a combination of sensors via RJ45 connectors. The sensors use super-flat flexible cable CAT5e, which saves space and makes them easy to position between the servers and other tight spaces.
A sensor of fluid through a pair of terminal connector.
4 dry contact input devices such as door contact sensors via connectors pair of terminals.
TheMINI-ENVIROMUX supports the following reports:
network messages via SNMP
E-mail via SMTP
Messages for the Web interface
A red LED indicator
See Also : Poly Mailers