Reducing Risk at the Edge: The Importance of Monitoring

Edge computing is finding a home in the infrastructure ecosystems of many enterprises. A plethora of benefits is driving adoption. These benefits include reduced network latency for faster services, reduced operational expenses from decentralized IT, bandwidth savings thanks to local networks, a reduction in network failures, IoT security frameworks, and the potential to reduce the number of data-center outages.

But security is an issue, according to IDG’s State of the Network Survey for 2020. More than three-quarters (77%) of organizations associate edge computing with security concerns. [1] And nearly half (45%) say a lack of physical security is an important factor in driving that concern.

Physical security includes factors typically out of sight and out of mind for cloud infrastructure and even many large data centers serving multiple local offices. However, with more enterprises standing up mini data centers in more locations, physical security keeps more IT personnel up at night. That includes problems with access control, concerns about fire and flooding, and worries about power outages and cooling failures.

Fortunately, enterprises are increasingly taking advantage of a strategic, integrated approach to physical security. In short, they’re making physical security an integral part of their cybersecurity strategies. Here’s how.

Cybersecurity through Physical Security

For many IT professionals, the traditional data center feels like a known entity they have control over, in contrast to IT assets at the edge. “I feel like I’m not in control of my infrastructure,” Greg Johnson, a sales director at Schneider Electric, says, summarizing conversations he’s had with IT managers. “In a data center, I have walls, I have racks, I have cooling, I have redundancy. Everything is an order.” Moving to the edge, however, causes uncertainty, even what Johnson describes as panic.

Key to managing that panic, Johnson says, is to get eyes on physical assets. And that might mean from a distance since IT managers may be responsible for assets distributed far from company headquarters.

Getting eyes on IT assets at the edge means deploying cameras to watch equipment, integrated sensors for monitoring environmental parameters such as temperature and moisture, and secure access control systems.

It also means a centralized monitoring platform that puts sensor and other data in one place for managers to easily keep tabs on the assets under their control and set alert thresholds for parameters such as temperature swings, opened doors, and power fluctuations.

All the data collected in that platform can provide another benefit: analytics to help predict failures before they happen, according to Johnson. An integrated remote monitoring system can also be paired with third-party dispatch services to put spare parts and technicians on the scene of a problem by the next business day.

“When it gets down to the physical aspect,” Johnson says, “we need a tool to give us eyes, ears, and hands in those spaces to fully realize the resiliency that we need.” And that may be just what the doctor ordered to let IT pros facing a rising tide of edge infrastructure get a good night’s sleep.

 [1] IDG State of the Network Survey, 2020