How to improve the physical security of your IT infrastructures.
Today’s corporate IT infrastructures are exposed to a whole range of threats. One tends to think about data theft as a result of ransomware or other viruses, but companies often underestimate the physical risks posed to data centres and arrays.
These threats are, nevertheless, very real and can often cause very expensive downtime. The Global Data Protection Index Study 2020 estimates that in France, 37% of businesses whose systems were unexpectedly impacted by outages were hit by an average of $382,000 in costs. And that doesn’t include the costs of recovery or the long-term financial impact on the company’s image.
What are the risks and threats facing corporate data centres? And above all, how can they be protected against? You’ll find the answers right here!
Current risks and threats.
When we think of physical threats, the first thing that comes to mind is the human factor. That means data theft and accidents caused through negligence or intent that cause damage to the racks. Companies seem to forget there are other natural and environmental risks to consider:
- Water leaks
- Fire
- Temperature extremes
- Humidity
All of these physical threats—whether natural or not—pose real risks to companies and can lead to IT infrastructure failures.
The three biggest challenges are security, deployment and monitoring.
It is, therefore, important to focus on the the following three questions:
- How can data be protected, both physically and in terms of cybersecurity?
- How can solutions be deployed when not all companies have qualified employees available around the clock to handle that kind of work?
- In the digital age, how can these data and multiple solutions in several locations be remotely monitored?
Do more with dedicated solutions.
In the face of the multitude of threats, IT manufacturers offer various dedicated security ad IT systems that are designed to mitigate these risks.
NetBotz from APC delivers powerful security and environment monitoring solutions for network racks in both micro and edge* data centres. The range incorporates many technologies to address this issue:
- Up to 47 wireless devices
- Up to max. 78 universal sensors
- Access control blocks that offers an overview of who has accessed the rack much in the same way as a log book
- New HD camera modules
- There are also integrated flexible alerts based on thresholds that can be defined by users and the IT department.
To minimise risks, companies managing IT sites in edge environments need to take a holistic approach to monitoring including following specialists’ best practices and selecting the right software solutions and digital services.
* On-premise multi-site IT rooms that meet certain latency and bandwidth requirements. The most important edge industries are healthcare, retail...
