Temperature Monitoring Feature

Monitoring Networks is Not Sexy. Losing Them Isn't Either.

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor

You want to keep your networks always on and always running, we’re guessing. If not, feel free to click away to your Facebook (News - Alert) page now.

 

Okay, now for the rest of you: One thing you don’t want to scrimp on, in these tough economic times where scrimping is an art form, is monitoring critical issues like temperature, humidity, smoke and airflow.

 

It’s not horribly sexy, of course, to say “Hey let’s throw some money at monitoring!” But remind people that it’s even less sexy to say “Um, you know what? Our network’s down. Seems things got too hot in the server room, and, well, the IT guys say it’s fried.” Very little sex appeal there.

Because the fact is, monitoring can help minimize financial loss in the face of disaster and reduce the time required to restore operations, according to a recent TMC (News - Alert) article. See, we find “business continuity” to be a far sexier phrase than “network down.”

 

And no, sticking a thermometer on the wall isn’t what we have in mind. AVTECH, which sells the sort of monitoring equipment you’re really looking for, notes that environment monitoring in computer rooms, data centers and other facilities “has become a critical part of disaster prevention for professional managers everywhere.”

 

The reason should be fairly obvious: A typical IT infrastructure supports the entire organization these days. Hey we know it does here, we’re guessing it’s the same where you are. And without continued operation of IT resources, an organization may have no access to information, databases, e-mail or the Internet.

 

Ponder that: An entire day without e-mail or the Internet. Toss your iPhone (News - Alert) in and it just makes the skin crawl, does it not? Well, monitoring can do a lot to stave off such a grisly fate.

 

No Internet, no e-mail – even worse than not being able to find out where the Kardashians are going for dinner, this would cause an organization “to appear ‘out of business’, ‘unstable’ or simply ‘irrelevant’,” according to AVTECH officials, who have plenty of experience dealing with the frantic calls from companies. “During downtime, ongoing costs continue to accrue while more and more profits are lost.”

 

And the thing of it all is, monitoring products aren’t an arm and a leg. Generally they’re easy, inexpensive and proven. Hey – if they keep your Internet up, isn’t that worth it?

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

Edited by Erin Harrison