To The Last Tribe Consulting

Last Monday morning, as I walked into our server room, I was greeted by a blast of  126F air and this view of one of our laptops in there.

Just kidding.

(Except for the 126F)

It was strange though, considering we had just installed a dedicated AC unit for our server room that kept it at a nice 68F.

Well, come to find out, we had had a large lightening storm over the weekend which had resulted in a short blackout, which had turned off the AC unit.  Well, even though the AC unit is set to restart after power failure, it did not. (And before you ask, yes, this unit is pretty much a small step up from a SOHO AC unit)

So this week I set out to do some research on an Environment Monitoring system that would alert me if the ambient temperature in the server room reached a certain threshold.

I had 3 main requirements:

-Cheap (<$400)

-Open Protocols (Uses SNMP/Email –> SMS/etc  instead of some proprietary reporting protocol)

-A standalone device, not a dongle attached to a server (less variables for things to go wrong)

-Extensible to possibly include other types of sensors (Not required, but a big plus)

After emailing some of the other network admins in my organization, checking out some sys/network admin resources (ServerFault & Spiceworks) , and of course, Googling it, I have come up with three major choices: (I threw out a few other ones ( SenseTronics) for too pricey and not the features I wanted)


1. IT WatchDogs “MicroGoose”

Price: $199

Pros:

-Cheapest solution from my point of view

-Standalone Device

-POE

-Temperature + Humidity Sensors

Cons:

-Back-ordered (not sure for how long)

-No extensibility for other types of sensors

-Not really alot of detailed information available on their website


2. AVTECH Room Alert 4E

Price: $375

Pros:

-Temperature & Power Monitoring

-Extensible Sensors (Could add another sensor such as movement detection, water detection, server room door open, etc)

Cons:

-A bit more expensive, but still within the budget

-Not POE like the MicroGoose

-No Humidity Monitoring, unlike the MicroGoose


3. APC AP9631 Network Management card with Environment Monitoring

Price: $370

Pros:

-Temperature and Humidity monitoring

-Power monitoring (with alot more detail than the AVTECH device)

Cons:

-A bit more expensive, but still within the budget

-Not quite a standalone device, but still close enough

-Not extensible like the AVTECH device


Out of the three above choices, I decided to go for the APC device specifically for the Power Monitoring feature–If you didn’t notice in the opening story, we didn’t get alerts that we were on UPS power, because we don’t have a UPS alerting system in place.  And even though the AVTECH device allowed for power monitoring, it wont give the kind of detail that the APC will.

Josh

A section of a book that I have been reading (Protect Your Windows Network From Perimeter to Data by Johansson & Riley) really made me sit and think, especially since it is so personally applicable to where I am, and the organization I am with is at.  Let me just quote it for you, and let you think on it:  (I have sourced it from a sample chapter available online, found here.)

System Administrator – Security Administrator

“Making system or network administrators manage security is counterproductive; those job categories then would have conflicting incentives. As a system or network administrator, your job should be to make systems work, make the technology function without users having to think about it, making the technology transparent. As a security administrator, your job is to put up barriers to prevent people from transparently accessing things they should not. Trying to please both masters at the same time is extremely difficult. Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde may succeed at it (for a time at least), but for the rest of us, it is a huge challenge. The things that will get you a good performance review in one area are exactly what will cost points in the other area. This can be an issue today because many who manage infosec are network or system administrators who are also part-time security administrators. Ideally, a security administrator should be someone who understands system and network administration, but whose job it is to think about security first, and usability/usefulness second. This person would need to work closely with the network/system administrator, and obviously the two roles must be staffed by people who can work together. However, conflict is a necessity in the intersection between security and usability/usefulness. Chances are that only by having two people with different objectives will you be able to find the optimal location on the continuum between security and usability/usefulness for your environment.”

Josh