Remote Monitors: Putting Yourself on Notice
On a wintry Saturday evening in Midtown Manhattan, the assistant manager of the research facility of a major pharmaceutical house was enjoying a sumptuous dinner when she received an e-mail on her Blackberry: Temp Lab 4 Air Handlr 78 degrees, 1830. She noted the time and continued with her dinner conversation. But she would also remain watchful for further messages about Lab 4, which was unmanned on weekends and located at least an hour away. If she got a notice that air handler temperature had reached 80 degrees, or that the humidity in the lab had exceeded 30 percent, she would then verify that a service tech had also been notified and gone to the site.
Fortunately the lab in question, as well as other facilities at the pharmaceutical plant, was automatically protected against a wide range of threats. That protection is provided by a system of sensors that will detect intrusion or environmental conditions that could result in system malfunctions, the loss of data, intellectual property and equipment. Moreover, the system is capable of notifying appropriate support staff, depending on the threat, by pager, e-mail, wireless or even combinations of those modes. They can also trigger the video or data-recording of an entire sequence of events.
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