APPLICATION SNAPSHOT
A GLOBAL TRADING FIRM ADOPTS RF CODE FOR AUTOMATING PHYSICAL ASSET MANGEMENT AND WIRE-FREE ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING.
According to Uptime Institute, the average cost of downtime is estimated to be $50,000/minute. When you consider the amount of daily dollar transactions a global trading company does, that number can quickly multiply. Therefore, eliminating downtime is always a critical objective for such a company because its transactions run on IT assets that can go down or go missing. Critical components in achieving that objective include knowing where an IT asset is located at all times and knowing what the conditions are in the asset environment.
Due to rapid growth, one of the leading global trading companies invested in the building of a new location that could accommodate its rapid growth. Because of the sensitivity of its data transactions, it was imperative that the company know with 100 percent accuracy where their IT assets were; the environment in which those assets operated; and to ensure that this information flow easily into their building management and security systems.
With a blank slate, they had the opportunity to implement best-of-breed solutions to protect their business. The company approached RF Code because of its world class, wire-free environmental monitoring solution. The fact that the solution could be deployed rapidly and without the high cost of proprietary cabling coupled with high-cost labor, the decision was made to move forward with the complete suite of RF Code wire-free environmental monitoring solutions. These included monitoring of temperature, humidity, door contacts and fluid detection.
During the evaluation process, the trading company realized that by leveraging the RF Code wire-free infrastructure of readers and software, it could very easily and at a low cost manage and automate its physical assets and process as well. As already noted the ability to tag every capital asset in the office and data center— including servers, laptops and monitors— is an important component of uptime for a trading company.
During the course of the evaluation, RF Code introduced its game-changing new asset tracking technology, which provides the ability to track equipment in the data centers down to the rack level. The trading company adopted the new IR-based rack monitoring system, which uses an IR enabled tag and light strip deployed down the channels of their rack cabinets. Now, they not only know that an asset is definitely in the data center, but also in what rack that piece of equipment resides. If that asset moves from one rack to another, the system is updated and the new location of that asset is now known. This level of granularity will provide the company with a fully automated physical asset management system. Furthermore, to augment the tracking of physical assets, the trading company will tie the RF Code solution into their IP based security system, so that they have visibility if an asset is ever to leave the building.
The ability to track both the asset and the environment has provided the trading company with unprecedented peace of mind. And that’s important when it comes to controlling the factors that influence downtime. After all, time is money.
Return to IT Asset Monitor #4.
