Rittal exhibited its solutions for IT security and infrastructure at the it-sa security trade fair

Photo by RITTAL GmbH

The volume of data is growing rapidly in the course of Industry 4.0 (IoT) and digitization. Digital data is already being referred to as the “oil of the twenty-first century”. The fear of lost data is putting IT security more under the industry’s spotlight. Rittal showed how companies can protect themselves against IT failure and data loss. The range of services on display includes solutions for protecting against fire, dust or burglary.

The increasing digitization and networking of the Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 offers numerous opportunities for hackers to gain access to information or to sabotage business and administrative processes. The result is a “new quality of the threat”, as the status report of Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) makes clear. IT security is therefore an essential requirement for successful digitization. In modern factories, more and more IT systems are needed for automation, and they all require suitable protection.

Anyone wanting to improve corporate IT security would do best to begin on the level of physical security. This includes protection from EMC radiation and vibrations, as well as from dust, dirt, liquids, break-ins and theft.

Visitors to Rittal found out how companies can protect their IT infrastructure against all this at Europe’s largest security trade fair.

Protection against heat, dust and dirt

Product highlights at the Rittal booth included the Edge Data Center for rapidly available computing capacity near to the data’s point of origin. The turnkey solution with its pre-configured, standardised and scalable infrastructure for the rapid construction of Edge data centres can also be used with a high availability room. This provides the necessary protection against heat, dust and dirt in an industrial manufacturing environment.

Monitoring for fail-safe operation

The monitoring of the IT solutions presented by Rittal at the booth is also vital for uninterrupted IT operation. The modular CMC III (Computer Multi Control) system monitors all the components in the IT rack. RiZone is the right choice if users need a quick-to-use solution to monitor small data centres. The Datacenter Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software application is modular and flexible to use, so that it can monitor complex infrastructures if needed.

Maximum reliability at a depth of 50 metres

In addition, visitors to the Rittal booth found out why the Lefdal Mine Datacenter (LMD) in Norway is a unique location for data centres in Europe, particularly in terms of security. In addition to reliability through fail-safe redundancy for power and cooling (e.g. n + 1 or 2N), tier 3 architecture and the 24/7 availability of security and technical personnel, all the IT components are located in security rooms or containers that provide the highest levels of physical security. As a so-called “lights-out facility”, system administrators remotely monitor and manage the servers, so that selected persons are only allowed to enter the containers and rooms in exceptional cases. This is supplemented by classical security precautions such as monitoring by camera and access control. Last but not least, the mineral “olivine” is present in the mine, providing natural EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) protection.

Keep cool/emergency cooling: Security for HPC applications

Visitors to the Rittal booth saw for themselves a special protection feature for use in the event of a disturbance to the climate control system. The emergency cooling of an HPC cluster is simulated using a fully configured TS IT rack. If climate control fails, the doors will open automatically once an alarm has been triggered. The room air in the data centre cools the HPC cluster in emergency operation, allowing a rapid and coordinated shutdown of the blade cluster. At the same time, the data is backed up.

For more information, please visit www.rittal.com.

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