Networks Europe Sept-Oct 2016 | Page 39

DATA CENTRE MONITORING 39

DATA CENTRE MONITORING 39

With regular headlines about the latest cybercrime attack stealing important or sensitive data , the physical security of IT equipment is often overlooked . One area in particular is the almost casual theft of small pieces of equipment from the racks . For example , helium filled 10TB hard drives represent a £ 600 investment , and with up to 22 drives used in a 4U storage array , loss through theft can be substantial .
In response , data centres have been increasingly looking for cost efficient solutions for key asset management . Data Centre Infrastructure Management ( DCIM ) is an emerging holistic management approach combining traditional data centre equipment and facilities with monitoring software for centralised control . DCIM includes physical and asset level components , and by combining both IT and facilities management it raises the effectiveness of a data centre .
Real-time monitoring RFID has been seen by many as a key element to providing real-time monitoring of component location within the data centre . By installing passive RFID tags on every removable component of the rack , systems integrators and site operations managers can easily use them not only to record locations , but also more information about the device than they could before with standard asset tags . But how you implement RFID monitoring is critical to the performance of the system .
Portable hand-held RFID reader systems have a very small UHF read range and only offer a slightly better performance than relying on paper records or barcodes . This is simply because it requires employees to walk down aisles and identify the piece of equipment and its location , which is an extremely time-consuming task . centre server rack arrays . Typically , four antennas would have to be separately mounted either side of the front of each rack , in both the upper and lower areas , and carefully positioned to ensure there are no gaps in the RF field coverage . With such an arrangement it would also be necessary to utilise multiple readers , resulting in excessive installed cost .
The ideal solution is to use a coaxial cable waveguide antenna , which can be directly integrated , with insulating spacers onto the rear side of the front access door of each server rack . Only one antenna needs to be fitted for a fully installed 45U sever rack . By fitting in an extended S-shape design you can achieve the best possible RF field coverage of the complete rack . In conjunction with a single reader which has the required power to match the correct read distances , it can register passive RFID tags that provide specific item identification within a rack and additional sensor functionalities e . g . detecting empty or occupied slots , thus minimising the complete data centre system installation cost . n
The Solution Up until now it has been unrealistic from a physical location point of view to directly integrate even the most compact passive RFID UHF patch antennas into existing data
IT INFRASTRUCTURE
SOFTWARE & SERVICES
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