Monitoring Physical Threats in Data Center

a
Monitoring Physical
Threats in the Data
Center
By Michael R. Zlatic
White Paper #102
Revision 1
Executive Summary
Traditional methodologies for monitoring the data center environment are no longer
sufficient. With technologies such as blade servers driving up cooling demands and
regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley driving up data security requirements, the physical
environment in the data center must be watched more closely. While well understood
protocols exist for monitoring physical devices such as UPS systems, computer room air
conditioners, and fire suppression systems, there is a class of distributed monitoring points
that is often ignored. This paper describes this class of threats, suggests approaches to
deploying monitoring devices, and provides best practices in leveraging the collected data
to reduce downtime.
©2006-2009 American Power Conversion. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, photocopied, transmitted, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature, without the written permission of the copyright owner. www.apc.com WP102 Rev 1 2Introduction
Today's common techniques for monitoring the data center environment date from the days of centralized mainframes, and include such practices as walking around with thermometers and relying on IT personnel to "feel" the environment of the room. But as data centers continue to evolve with distributed processing and server technologies that are driving up power and cooling demands, the environment must be looked at more closely. Rising power density and dynamic power variations are the two main drivers forcing changes in the monitoring methodology of IT environments. Blade servers have tremendously increased power densities and dramatically changed the power and cooling dynamics of the surrounding environments. Power management technologies have pushed the ability of servers and communication equipment to vary power draw (and therefore heat dissipation) based on computational load. This issue is described in detail in APC White Paper # 43, "Dynamic Power Variations in Data Centers and Network Rooms." Although it is common to have sophisticated monitoring and alerting capabilities in physical equipment such as the UPS, computer room air conditioner (CRAC), and fire suppression systems, other aspects of the physical environment are often ignored. Monitoring of equipment is not enough - the surrounding environment must be viewed holistically and watched proactively for threats and intrusions. Such threats include excessive server intake temperatures, water leaks, and unauthorized human access to the data center or inappropriate actions by personnel in the data center. Remote network locations such as branch offices, data rooms, and local point-of-sale locations further highlight the need for automated monitoring, where it is impractical and unreliable to have people physically present to check conditions such as temperature and humidity. With the introduction of unmanned network outposts, IT administrators must have reliable systems in place to know what is going on. With today's technologies, monitoring systems can be configured to a level of detail that meets the data center's particular environmental and security demands - each rack can be considered a mini "data center" 1with its own requirements, with a monitoring strategy that may include multiple data collection points. This paper discusses physical threats that can be mitigated by distributed monitoring strategies, and offers guidelines and best practices for implementing sensors in the data center. It also discusses the use of data center design tools to simplify the specification and design process of these distributed monitoring systems.
1 APC White Paper #100, "Management Strategy for Network-Critical Physical Infrastructure," addresses the issue of integrating a large number of rack-located monitor points into an existing enterprise management system (EMS) or building management system (BMS).
©2006-2009 American Power Conversion. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, photocopied, transmitted, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature, without the written permis... [download for more]