Be prepared before it is too late - The Importance of Power Backup

In an emergency situation, is your business building or office prepared? major storm hit your area with a large-scale power failure that resulted in complete loss of power?  On the off chance that your business office is anything like numerous others the country over, it is likely unprepared to handle a sustained power failure

Truth be told, most business offices don't have adequate backup power that would be necessary to keep the facility running in the event of a total power failure. According to surveys on emergency backup power and power controls, an across the nation test of offices administrators demonstrates wide crevices between what they have, what they need, and what they require.

Now is the ideal time to evaluate your business office and decide the steps necessary to guarantee your facility has access to the emergency generator power it might need in the event of a massive blackout. Some power outages, for example, power failures from national grids, are not unsurprising. Indeed, even along these lines, it should be expected that power grid failures will spontaneously and randomly occur at periodic, short intervals. While less normal, complete power outages do happen. When they do, they can keep going for amplified timeframes and cause complete shutdowns of business offices. Power outages can basically close down a business office's operations for a drawn out timeframe.

Preparation is the Best Defense Against Power Outages in Commercial Facilities

Just the thought about a complete force blackout can be overwhelming for business office owners or supervisors. The likelihood of a total power failure - either because of a natural disaster, a man-made disaster, or a blackout - should not and cannot be overlooked. An ideal opportunity to get ready is before a crisis - not afterward. Being proactive in securing your business office before a force blackout happening

Right now is an ideal opportunity to survey your business office and determine the steps necessary to guarantee your facility has access to the emergency generator power it might need in the event of a massive blackout. Some power outages, for example, power failures from national grids, are not unsurprising. Indeed, even along these lines, it should not be considered out of the ordinary that power grid failures will spontaneously and randomly occur at periodic, short intervals. While less regular, total power outages do happen. When they do, they can keep going for broadened timeframes and cause complete shutdowns of business offices. Power outages can basically close down a business office's operations for a drawn out timeframe.

Be prepared before it is too late!

For more information, contact us at

infrastructure@jks-systems.com / 860-436-4664

www.jks-systems.com

JKS Systems – Infrastructure- Data and optical Testing

Fluke Networks- Cable Certification

"Six Reasons It Is More Important Than Ever"

Economic turmoil is shining a bright light on the value of services used by IT departments. Among them are the services used to deploy and maintain enterprise network infrastructure. Infrastructure includes copper and fiber cabling, and it is the foundation of the network. This paper identifies the specific benefits afforded by cable certification and how much it pays back to the network owner.

A souring economy is causing retooling of IT budgets. Cash conservation is an “A” priority for everyone, including managers who must make tough decisions to reduce operating expense and capital outlays. Yet in this process, IT managers should not forget that a healthy network infrastructure is inextricably linked to productivity, service efficiency and expanded services.

A tempting option to reduce IT out-of-pocket expense may be to defer maintenance. While no company defers truly critical maintenance, there are tasks that might be postponed because they exist in a gray area that may be seen as “optional.” Navigating these decisions is not easy but it would be a grave mistake to suspend testing of the foundation of every network: its copper and fiber cabling.

1. Certifying is Less Expensive than Repair

Certifying copper and fiber cabling prevents problems. Certification is insurance against future problems. Without it repairs must be made on a live network or worse, on a network suffering an outage.

Network downtime extracts a painful price in lost revenue, lost productivity, diminished customer service and competitive disadvantage. The Contingency Planning Group performed a study that estimated the cost of an hour of enterprise network downtime between $14,500 and $6,500,000, depending on the industry. The Gartner Group estimated that an hour of downtime costs a less bone-chilling $42,000 per hour, on average.

If an enterprise is challenged to improve its annual uptime from 99.9% to 99.99%, it needs to reduce downtime by eight hours. Using the Gartner Group’s conservative estimate of downtime cost, this saves an enterprise $336,000 annually. How do you get there?

There are many causes of downtime. A Gartner/Dataquest study pointed the finger at human error and application failure 80% of the time. But if the network represents just 20% of the cause, it accounts for $67,000 of the exposure.

Contrast this to the cost of certification. A network with 600 Cat 6 copper lines undergoes certification testing. A realistic assumption is that 5% of the links fail the initial test and must be repaired and retested. Using a modern cable certifier the entire process will take approximately 11 man-hours. At a commercial rate of $65 per hour, the expense is less than $750.

$750 for insurance to achieve $67,000 in savings: even more if the network supports a high-value business operation such as credit card, retail or brokerage transactions. The case is certification is self-evident.

2. Product Warranties Are Limited

A network owner may be tempted to roll the dice in tough times and use a manufacturer’s warranty as a security blanket. This is understandable because most cable and connector manufacturers offer good warranties and they stand behind their products. These manufacturers cannot, though, warranty final installation.

The quality of a cable installation lies largely in the hands of the installers. If installation craftsmanship is poor, even excellent products fail. The failures and the attendant hardships are outside the scope of a hardware warranty, so the network owner and the installer must negotiate remediation.

The only way to assure that installer workmanship meets standards is by certification testing. The only way to assure that best practices are followed is by certification testing. Certification gives the network owner protection against unanticipated costs. When the economics winds blow ill, protection is welcome.

3. Certification and Recertification Will Futureproof the Infrastructure

You might believe that a cable build-out “does what it does” when installed, and never does more. This could be short-sighted. A recertified cabling plant may proved to support higher-speed traffic that is deployed years after the cable is first installed. How important is support for higher speeds? According to a survey of datacenters by the research firm BSRIA, multigigabit technology is now commonplace:

What are the implications of this? Category 6 copper cable was designed to support 1-Gigabit per second data rate. Recent field certification tests indicate that a good deal of the Cat 6 cable used in datacenters complies with the 10GBASE-T standard and can support 10-Gigabit service over short to moderate distances. If you recertify the Cat 6 cable in your datacenter you may find an efficient path to a 10X throughput, avoiding some or all of the cost of replacing cable. Moreover, when demand for IT services rebounds the recertified cable plant is poised to support new equipment and expanded services.

4. Uncertified Cabling = Stranded Capital

It is a fact: recessions churn building tenancy. When a new occupant enters a building the state of its cabling presents a series of questions. How old is it? Does it work? What was it used for? When? A new tenant may view the mass of copper and/or fiber as a mystery, not an asset.

Certifying 200 lines of cabling will cost less than $500 at most commercial rates. Installing 200 new lines of new Cat 6 cable will cost $5,000-$10,000. The choice for the landlord is easy.

Certification is life extension for a cable plant. It is capital saved for building owners and tenants. Lack of certification turns legacy cabling into stranded capital: money spent that cannot be recovered.

5. Reducing Waste is Good Policy

The economic case for extending the life of cables is made in Section 4, but it may not be the worst case. The widely adopted National Electrical Code (NEC 2002) requires the removal of abandoned cable that is not identified for future use. Without certification the cost legacy cable may well include the cost of cable removal, the cost of cable recycling and/or the environmental impact of disposal.

It is sound business policy to maximize use of existing copper and fiber cable. When properly maintained it has a long lifespan. With limited budgets demanding greater efficiency it makes sense to use certification to implement the three canons of environmental management: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

6. Buyer Beware

An unsettling trend in the cable industry relates to “no-name” Cat 5, 6, and 6A product. This cable is often made outside the United States and is less expensive than comparable product from major manufactures. Unfortunately, much of this inexpensive cable is made from inferior materials using questionable manufacturing processes.

In 2008 the Communications Cable & Connectivity Association tested nine brands of no-name cables, all of which were rated for use in risers or plenum spaces. Not one met the physical requirements defined in TIA 568-B.2. Only five meet the electrical test requirements defined in TIA 568-B.2 and one met the safety requirements defined by UL 1666 and NFPA 262. How is such poor cable reaching the market? It can because safety agencies perform random tests at the point of manufacture, not in the field. The chasm in the quality process leaves end users exposed to safety and performance risks that are entirely avoidable.

To ensure that there are no costs or risks hidden in inexpensive Cat 5, 6, and 6A cable, enterprises and cable installers should certify cable in accordance with industry standards.

Conclusion

Cabling that is certified has far more value than cabling that is uncertified. The amount of the additional value depends on application and the enterprise. Consider the pitfalls of uncertified cabling. Consider the trade-off between testing and “hoping for the best”. Hope is rarely a good strategy, and in a challenging economy, it is a dangerous one.

To learn more, please contact JKS at:

infrastructure@jks-systems.com / 860-436-4664

www-jks-systems.com

JKS Infrastructure Solutions- Emerson UPS Battery Backup

The cost of denial of service (DoS) attacks against data centers.

DoS attacks occur when a criminal prevents legitimate users from accessing information or services. By targeting a company’s computers and its network connection an attacker can cause costly disruptions to operations and damage to its reputation and trustworthiness. We believe a better understanding of the cost of cyber crime and the consequences of DoS attacks helps organizations to determine the appropriate amount of investment and resources needed to address these threats.

  

Have high data center redundancy

We know with a UPS, redundancy matters. N+1 is good, 2N is better and 2N+1 is best practice. Whether it’s UPS redundancy in the event of an attack targeting the infrastructure or a full data center redundancy in the event of an attack targeting a specific facility, redundancy is critical factor in preventing DoS outages.

Emerson Network Power shares best practices and solutions to equip customers against DoS attacks:

Plan ahead, and have a strong command and control governance structure

Reinforce access control by limiting people who have access to the network and changing credentials frequently. Ensure security measures are in place to detect when someone or something out of the ordinary is trying to find a way into the network.

Have high data center redundancy

Incorporate redundancy measures with the UPS. N+1 is good, 2N is better and 2N+1 is a best practice. Whether it’s UPS redundancy in the event of an attack targeting the infrastructure or full data center redundancy in the event of an attack targeting a specific facility, redundancy is a critical factor in preventing DoS outages.

Use network visibility and intelligence to ensure early threat awareness

Data centers have evolved into elaborate ecosystems, with networks connected to everything and across systems. Managing security amid network complexity requires visibility across the network to enable IT managers to predict and prevent problems. Failing to do so would create vulnerable access points for hackers to attack.

Secure your IT infrastructure with back-up servers

Redundancy measures for servers can be put in place to ensure critical availability of the network. A server with the same computing capacity can be kept offline and activated in case of DoS outages or excessive traffic at the primary server and can continue operations while the network is down.

The following are key takeaways regarding the costs and consequences of DoS attacks: 

·   DoS attacks can be costly. Our research shows a wide variation or range in the cost of DoS attacks, from a low of $14,000 to a high of $2.35 million per incident. 

·         The cost of DoS is trending upward. The average cost of a DoS attack in 2011 was $187,506 and this increased to $255,470 in 2015. The average cost has been trending upward over time (i.e., 31 percent increase over five years). 

·   Our benchmark sample reveals that 49 percent of DoS attacks caused a total or partial data center outage. Thirty-two percent of organizations experienced a partial outage (i.e., one or more servers or racks were impaired) and 17 percent experienced a total unplanned outage.  § We examined six preventive control characteristics that show differences between the outage and non-outage groups. We found companies that withstand DoS attacks (non-outage group) are more likely to have a command and control governance structure, high data center redundancy, network intelligence tools, advance threat intelligence, well defined incident response plans and enterprise deployment of anti-DoS tools. 

·   The cost of DoS is related to the existence of data center outages. An attack that causes total outage results in an average DoS cost of $610,300. In contrast, DoS attacks that do not result in outages yield an average cost of only $36,800. 

·   DoS attacks are more costly than other categories of cyberattacks, such as malicious insiders, malicious code and web-based attacks. 

·         Recovery and detection activities represent more than half of the total internal cost of a DoS attack. Revenue losses and disruption to normal operations represent 53 percent of the average external cost consequence of a DoS attack. 

·   Average DoS costs vary by industry. Organizations in financial services, technology and software, utilities and energy and communications industries experience the highest average DoS costs. In contrast, public sector, services, hospitality and research industry sectors experience a much lower average cost.

To learn more, please contact JKS at:

860-436-4664/ infrastructure@jks-systems.com

Jks-systems.com