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In a world where technology evolves so rapidly, the speed of business is constantly accelerating. Finding ways to reduce latency becomes more mission critical each year.
Edge computing deployments aren’t just for the “bleeding edge” crowd anymore. Organizations of all sizes are finding edge computing to be the answer to reducing latency, and they are moving toward more decentralized edge environments that scatter the IT infrastructure across multiple remote sites. This includes locations like network closets, industrial floors, and hospital emergency rooms that weren’t designed to house server racks, power, cooling, or other physical IT infrastructure.
Because these locations weren’t originally designed for this purpose, it’s also common for them to lack trained IT staff on-site to monitor and manage edge IT assets to protect them from environmental and physical threats. If this is a problem for your organization, complete remote monitoring and management for edge computing is an ideal solution.
Simplifying your edge computing deployment
Sites like warehouses, manufacturing floors, and hospitals depend on physical IT infrastructure to power critical hardware — especially during challenging economic times when delivering always-on availability is more important than ever. Unforeseen disruptions can be not only costly, but life-threatening.
A hybrid infrastructure of power, cooling, environmental monitoring, and security is the key to driving cost efficiencies, uptime, and availability. Protecting that infrastructure requires remote monitoring and management solutions that simplify the deployment and maintenance of your distributed assets.
Cloud-based and vendor-agnostic remote monitoring software can provide you with a centralized interface that gives you real-time visibility into networked physical assets — without crowding the tech stack with several extra monitoring and maintenance tools. You can manage devices through a single dashboard, configuring alarm thresholds and upgrading firmware while avoiding over-provisioning equipment.
In addition to simplification, it is equally important to choose a solution that can secure your infrastructure from environmental hazards.
The problem: Protecting your edge computing devices from environmental hazards
Many businesses want the lower latency edge computing offers but aren’t fully aware of the variety of environmental threats that can arise and disrupt their assets. Environmental hazards pose as much risk to their business as cyber-attacks and data loss.
Equipment exposed to higher temperatures or humidity levels can easily fail, which can shut down an entire facility. Equipment should also be proactively protected against leaks, smoke, and dust build-up, which can raise maintenance costs and lower performance levels.
Even organizations that realize the risks of environmental dangers run into substantial challenges monitoring and protecting their equipment against those risks, especially in unmanned and remote edge locations. Those challenges can be solved with an environmental and physical security monitoring solution equipped with a range of sensors and cameras to help you avoid equipment performance problems and failures. A complete solution enhances the resilience of your edge infrastructure by offering real-time insight into environmental conditions on demand, from anywhere, from any device.
The solution: managed remote monitoring for your physical IT infrastructure
Organizations want to increase operational efficiency in edge environments to drive business growth, but many also face the challenge of limited staff available on IT teams to monitor the physical security of assets. Many IT teams are overextended, responsible for running servers and applications at high performance levels, troubleshooting technical issues, and managing the physical infrastructure at the edge.
A managed service provider can provide the optimal combination of edge monitoring software, environmental monitoring, and dispatch services with spare parts. Most offer remote monitoring, but to get to truly autonomous management you need a comprehensive suite of solutions that offers a SaaS-based monitoring and management portal supported by on-site troubleshooting and resolution by highly qualified technicians.
When choosing a vendor/provider of remote monitoring and management solutions, be sure to look for a partner with extensive leadership in data center infrastructure management with deep roots in industrial automation and data center management and operations, who can serve as a trusted advisor. Look for a full suite of software solutions bundled with on-site support delivered by seasoned technicians and best-in-class environmental monitoring products. These solutions are as transformative for edge computing as edge computing itself is for entire organizations, maximizing uptime with a level of operational efficiency impossible to achieve with a software-only approach. As you add devices and increase your edge infrastructure complexity, you should be able to scale your solution set without hiring extra technical support staff to manage it.
A variety of solutions exist, whether you are looking to outsource or address in-house. Look for a vendor that provides a comprehensive suite of flexible solutions. Here are three aspects to look for in a remote monitoring and management solution:
1. Total visibility
Look for a solution that gives you total visibility into and control over remote power and networked critical infrastructure assets with a single dashboard. You should be able to get insight into multiple edge sites to reduce downtime, supporting preventive maintenance without adding workforce. Options that allow you to scale and pay as you go can help you extend your central IT team’s reach to proactively address equipment issues from anywhere, on any device, and collect data from the edge that will help them make more data-driven decisions about retiring aging equipment, inventory management, and more.
2. Top-Notch Technical Support
This solution offers on-site support to advance your IT service delivery levels. While data is pivotal to effective preventive maintenance, you also need experienced technicians on your side. Look for providers with a broad network of trained technicians to your doorstep to help you maximize uptime at the edge. IT managers can use the tool to set up scheduled maintenance tasks, freeing their teams up from spending time on troubleshooting malfunctioning hardware.
Organizations that don’t have experienced personnel in IT remediation can greatly benefit from this service, getting access to technical support with spare parts as soon as the following business day. This lower mean time to repair increases your IT resiliency by saving costs and reducing negative impacts to your business and your customers. With the money you save on building up operational technology (OT) talent, you can invest in other high-priority items without losing the peace of the mind that comes with 24/7 expert monitoring.
3. Physical Infrastructure Monitoring
This solution helps you protect your physical edge IT infrastructure from threats. Mechanical errors can arise from fluid leaks, smoke, heat, humidity, or dust, which can lead to critical shutdowns that jeopardize business operations. An environmental monitoring and security solution helps reduce these threats so you can get the most out of your edge IT assets. The right solution will come with everything you need to monitor these risks — built-in sensors, access controls, and cameras.
Your single trusted advisor for physical IT infrastructure remote monitoring and management at the edge
With edge assets becoming more and more crucial to the success of your business operations, it’s important to build protection into your infrastructure from the ground up — not only to protect your investment, but to protect your business from costly downtime and performance interruptions. And as the complexity of your overall IT infrastructure grows, it’s easy for IT teams to get overwhelmed. Many teams can’t realistically offer 24/7 support. Be sure to look for those who can offer you a single trusted advisor for remote management, maintenance, and upgrades that can help you optimize your IT team’s operational excellence. Contact us to get started. You can also check out our white paper “Digital Remote Monitoring and Dispatch Services’ Impact on Edge Computing and Data Centers” to learn more.
