Business

Protecting your edge deployments against physical, cybersecurity threats


Schneider Electric – Remote system monitoring has never been more important, with the current work from home (WFH) environment and travel restrictions due to the ongoing pandemic.

The challenge is compounded as more edge environments are deployed to meet evolving computing needs, resulting in many more physical facilities to maintain and secure.

Thankfully, a variety of solutions are available to help organisations effectively monitor their infrastructure. With the right systems in place, automatic alerts can be sent to administrators the moment suspicious, erroneous, or anomalous activities are detected.

Moreover, such systems can also ensure that systems are properly maintained and patched against cyber attackers.

So how can one go about choosing the optimal system to monitor an edge deployment in this unprecedented time? We outline two main considerations.

Monitoring the physical edge

Not all monitoring solutions are equal, and it makes sense to take some effort to choose the right system for remote monitoring.

For start, avoid a piecemeal approach but go with an integrated platform that can grow with your business, preferably one designed with expansion and multiple edge locations in mind. In this vein, look out for the option of additional sensors and monitoring capabilities. 

At the basic level, the ability to monitor environmental attributes such as temperature, humidity, water leaks, smoke, and excessive dust is a must.

They represent threats to IT equipment and can degrade or destroy the expensive hardware used to host the applications or cloud services used by the enterprise.

Ideally, the base platform should integrate well with third-party sensors for expanded deployment options, as well as management platforms such as the building management system (BMS) or data centre infrastructure management (DCIM).

At a minimum, the chosen platform should offer the ability to work with web APIs or common management protocols such as SNMP.

Keeping systems secured

Physical security remains a top priority, especially as the number of edge computing sites grow. After all, it is common for organisations to turn to external partners to physically deploy or maintain certain parts of their edge systems.

This makes logging their physical presence more important than ever. 

For a start, IP cameras should be deployed to continually monitor an edge environment, with connected locks and dedicated security systems keeping detailed access logs of access to cabinets and systems.

Done properly, this can support security audits and ensures that the edge systems are protected against both accidental access and malicious actors. 

Finally, cybersecurity should not be overlooked. While the bulk of this falls outside the remit of the infrastructure manager, any internet-connected device is a potential entry point for a cyberintruder.

This makes it vital that any Internet-connected systems have up-to-date firmware and are adequately shielded from attackers, which is a feature that should be offered by the monitoring solution. 

APC by Schneider Electric’s environmental monitoring and security solution, NetBotz, interfaces with the cloud-based management platform EcoStruxure IT to cover an array of monitoring requirements. Check out the full range of NetBotz offerings here, or get a free trial of EcoStruxure IT Expert here.

 



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