Data Centers – Ensuring high Availability of important Data

The Challenge

A data center must guarantee network security as well as physical security. Not only data loss, but also data manipulation or theft are threats that cause both financial damage and harm the company‘s reputation. In addition, the equipment housed in a data center is highly sensitive, so that defined humidity and temperature values must be maintained, for example. Fire protection is another aspect, as in some cases extinguishing systems with chemical extinguishing agents are more suitable than sprinkler systems in the event of a fire.

Unified control of different technologies

All these points lead to the fact that a whole range of security and building management technologies are used in a data center. Typically, these include video surveillance, access control, separation barriers, fire and perimeter protection, air conditioning, air purification systems to reduce dust particles, extinguishing systems, leakage warning system. Multiple redundancy concepts and an uninterruptible power supply are also required.

High availability and redundancy

Data centers are the technical switching and storage points of modern societies. Consequently, their availability is important, because a failure of individual processes or components jeopardizes the provision of the IT service as a whole and is often accompanied by temporary or total data loss. Constantly increasing demands on the availability and reliability of data centers require sophisticated technical and organizational measures.

Flexibly extendable platform

Data center security is not static, but a continuous process due to adaptations, modifications, or extensions of a data center. Updates of the numerous systems connected to WinGuard are also realized by their manufacturers on a regular basis. Such changes must not influence the security architecture. The integration platform WinGuard is flexibly extendable so that operators of data centers can adapt modules or functions anytime.

Security and stability

With WinGuard and multiple standby servers, the complete data of the main system can be kept redundantly. This prevents failure and ensures highest availability of the Physical Security Information Management system. Distributed locations can be networked via location servers to ensure independent operation of the sites in the event of a central server or network failure.

The holistic solution for data center security

Via WinGuard, all security, building management and information systems used in the data center can be controlled centrally and uniformly. As the staff only has to manage the work with one user interface and receives dynamic procedural instructions via the system in case of an incident, the security in the data center is increased immensely.

Automatic interaction of all systems

Automatic interaction of all systemsIn case of multiple events occurring at the same time, e.g. an unauthorized access attempt at the main entrance while a temperature overrun is reported in another area of the data center, WinGuard channels the necessary information and several connected systems act automatically: The cameras in the main entrance area are displayed so that the operator can check whether it is indeed an unauthorized access attempt and, if so, take the necessary actions with the help of the detailed work-flows. At the same time, local service personnel who are close to the area where the temperature has been exceeded are notified by SMS so that they can check on site. In addition, connecting doors to other areas are automatically closed so that the excessive temperature will not have any further effect.