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Server room air conditioning is an ongoing challenge for the average administrator. Equipment runs hotter than in years past and often the cooling capacity has trouble keeping up. Rolling in a couple of portable air conditioners helps but proper server room maintenance goes beyond that.

Call Housekeeping

Dust is the enemy of all electronics. This fine cloud of dead skin cells, dust mite corpses, and clothing fibers has two deadly effects.

First, it clogs the filters designed to keep it out of the machines. This restricts air flow and the cool air from your server room air conditioning can’t get into the machines as easily. It is imperative to regularly blow the dust away from vents with canned air.

Second, despite the filters some dust gets inside the case. A fine layer of the stuff coats the components in a thin blanket, trapping the heat inside. The excess heat can’t get out as easily and the components get hotter. Canned air helps here as well, but of course you have to open the case which risks damaging components.

In addition to regular dust patrol, most server rooms need professional help. Server room cleaning services specialize in the unique problems associated with dust buildup. They know how to clean server rooms properly without damaging the equipment.

Monitor The Temperatures

The worst way to find out about heat problems is when your servers suddenly shut down. Forewarned is forearmed and server administrators have learned that regular temperature monitoring is a critical part of server room air conditioning.

This means more than just tracking the onboard processor temperature probes all motherboards have today. Additional probes should measure the intake and outtake air flows to measure the temperature change across the components. Sudden changes can indicate problems with internal fans that need to be dealt with immediately.

The operator isn’t going to check the readings manually very often. The temperature probes should be monitored by the computers with alarms set to sound if they go outside of acceptable ranges. Although, of course, too hot is a problem, so is too cold. Over cooling the server doesn’t hurt the equipment, but it wastes money and puts unnecessary stress on the server room air conditioning.

Things Change – So Should You

Computer use isn’t static so why should your server room air conditioning be? Tracking the temperatures is good, but anticipating changes before they happen is better.

You shouldn’t use the same cooling at noon on a busy work day in the middle of July that you’d use at 3 am on a weekend in December. With experience, operators can learn what cooling level is needed as server loads and environmental factors change. Cranking up the cooling before the workday begins prevents servers from getting to hot as users some on line. Turning it down at the end of the day prevents you from wasting money and energy on unnecessary cooling.

A technical document is one in which the technical writer tries to write the basic information describing a complex or easy software or application in much simpler words.

The main role of a well written document is to make the client who is lay man in most of the cases, understand the main functionality and basic specification of the product.

Outsourced product development companies make use of technical documentation process which involves various steps as per the life cycle followed during the development of the product. A Good technical document is presented in the following stages:

1) Information gathering – project specifications and analysis

2) Prototype -set of guidelines and writing conventions to be followed or any previous such document to be followed

3) First Draft – writing the content on all the topics of the project

4) Second draft – After review of the first draft changes are made

5) Final/Standard Draft – at this stage minor changes are made after the second draft review and the draft is ready to be delivered

A technical documentation process is considered as one of the most time consuming process by various software companies as it requires a lot of man power and planning.

A well delivered technical document, at the end of the day, requires a great planning and understanding of the whole project.

Few tips followed bysoftware development companies for an effective technical documentation:

1) Talk to your development department and get all the queries solved regarding the content and the technology used during the project.

2) Project the table of contents and structure the content so that it’s easy for the valued users to navigate to different areas of the document.

3) Thoroughly spell check and use the right grammar; don’t over use words as that can kill the authenticity of your content.

4) Use proper formatting and your content should be well organized.

5) Use sensible words to describe the content; it will make the user/client better understand the content of the document.

6) Always follow top down approach to write the document concepts.

7) Get a copy of well writtensoftware documentation template and then one can just stuff in the content in that as per the requirement.
Make your content well suited to the topic and use tables wherever necessary to highlight the difference between various scenarios.

9) Avoid redundancy in the document; try to club the sentences and if that is not possible either change the context or delete the repeating line.

10) Keep your document simple and clear; it should be understandable to the client.

11) Always try and mention the sources of the authorities and references of the sources.

12) Last but the not the least, proof-read your document again and ask others or your peers to review it until it is ideal to be submitted.

These tips if followed will definitely impress the client and lead to achieve client satisfaction.

Scenario: You work in a corporate environment in which you are, at least partially, responsible for network security. You have implemented a firewall, virus and spyware protection, and your computers are all up to date with patches and security fixes. You sit there and think about the lovely job you have done to make sure that you will not be hacked.

You have done, what most people think, are the major steps towards a secure network. This is partially correct. What about the other factors?

Have you thought about a social engineering attack? What about the users who use your network on a daily basis? Are you prepared in dealing with attacks by these people?

Believe it or not, the weakest link in your security plan is the people who use your network. For the most part, users are uneducated on the procedures to identify and neutralize a social engineering attack. What’s going to stop a user from finding a CD or DVD in the lunch room and taking it to their workstation and opening the files? This disk could contain a spreadsheet or word processor document that has a malicious macro embedded in it. The next thing you know, your network is compromised.

This problem exists particularly in an environment where a help desk staff reset passwords over the phone. There is nothing to stop a person intent on breaking into your network from calling the help desk, pretending to be an employee, and asking to have a password reset. Most organizations use a system to generate usernames, so it is not very difficult to figure them out.

Your organization should have strict policies in place to verify the identity of a user before a password reset can be done. One simple thing to do is to have the user go to the help desk in person. The other method, which works well if your offices are geographically far away, is to designate one contact in the office who can phone for a password reset. This way everyone who works on the help desk can recognize the voice of this person and know that he or she is who they say they are.

Why would an attacker go to your office or make a phone call to the help desk? Simple, it is usually the path of least resistance.  There is no need to spend hours trying to break into an electronic system when the physical system is easier to exploit. The next time you see someone walk through the door behind you, and do not recognize them, stop and ask who they are and what they are there for. If you do this, and it happens to be someone who is not supposed to be there, most of the time he will get out as fast as possible. If the person is supposed to be there then he will most likely be able to produce the name of the person he is there to see.

I know you are saying that I am crazy, right? Well think of Kevin Mitnick. He is one of the most decorated hackers of all time. The US government thought he could whistle tones into a telephone and launch a nuclear attack. Most of his hacking was done through social engineering. Whether he did it through physical visits to offices or by making a phone call, he accomplished some of the greatest hacks to date. If you want to know more about him Google his name or read the two books he has written.

It’s beyond me why people try and dismiss these types of attacks. I guess some network engineers are just too proud of their network to admit that they could be breached so easily. Or is it the fact that people don’t feel they should be responsible for educating their employees? Most organizations don’t give their IT departments the jurisdiction to promote physical security. This is usually a problem for the building manager or facilities management. None the less, if you can educate your employees the slightest bit; you may be able to prevent a network breach from a physical or social engineering attack.