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SNMP-Link sensors prevent a Christmas Day disaster


It’s never fun to have your holiday interrupted due to work, especially if it’s because your remote equipment room is filling with water. That’s what happened last year to employees of management consulting firm Booz-Allen & Hamilton. On Christmas Day, a pipe burst in their headquarters building. The resulting flood soaked offices on several floors. Water cascaded down a stairwell and the PBX conduit. Fortunately, the company’s IT department installed an Asentria SNMP-Link the previous fall. They had determined that significant equipment malfunctions were the result of environmental conditions such as air conditioning and UPS failures. They installed the SNMP-Link to monitor five thermostats throughout their main equipment room — it saved them tens of thousands of dollars.


Their SNMP-Link alarm system engaged when water started to fill the room that contains the company’s servers, phone systems and about 300 pieces of equipment. At least one thermostat detected an out-of-range threat and tripped its internal contact closure. The SNMP-Link detected the contact closure event and sent an SNMP trap to the company’s central network management system (NMS). The NMS then sent a pager alarm message to offsite personnel, who arrived in time to prevent greater damage. The equipment losses, while substantial, could have been much worse. A multiplexer was lost; some circuit breakers exploded into pieces on the floor. Water also destroyed a couple dozen telephone switch boards, several hubs, switches and routers. By acting quickly, the company managed to achieve full operation by the following work day. They now plan to add moisture detectors to the system. The SNMP-Link can monitor up to 14 analog and/or contact closure devices: fire detectors, air conditioning systems, fuse boxes, UPS units, etc. “The SNMP-Link allowed us to extend our monitoring system beyond our IP network. Now we can manage anything, even if it’s not IP-based. We could manage a soft drink machine if we wanted to,” says Booz-Allen & Hamilton System Administrator Paul Pinocci.


Interestingly, the company wired its thermostats to the SNMP-Link via existing phone cables. They avoided cabling costs!


abercrombie & fitch