How To Add Audio/Visual Alerting To Your Monitoring Solution
Jacarta monitoring solutions are designed to provide users with effective alerts that warn them of potential threats to their IT infrastructure and business continuity. Most users will choose a mixture of alerting methods that work for them, including email messages, SMS Text Messages and Telephone Voice Calls. However, in some cases, a physical Audio/Visual Alarm Beacon can be an ideal method for ensuring onsite personnel are made immediately aware of any issues.
An audio/visual alarm beacon can be added to our iMeter Lite, iMeter and interSeptor Pro devices. The beacon is supplied as standard with an orange lens but red and green are also available on request. Beacons have two volume levels that can be switched easily the internal DIP switches and can also be supplied as light-only for use in locations where audio alarms are not suitable. The beacon connects to the host device via an interface cable which can be up-to 30m in length so it can be installed in the ideal location. We can build the beacon with your chosen interface cable length to make installation simple.
Deploying a Beacon with the iMeter and iMeter Lite
Connecting an alarm beacon to the iMeter & iMeter Lite is very straightforward as the RJ45 sensor input ports also function as relay output ports.
The comprehensive alerting matrix on the devices allows users to trigger the alarm beacon for certain alarms and conditions. For example, a user may wish for the alarm beacon to only be triggered in the event of a certain sensor type reaching a critical threshold. The alarm beacon could also be added as part of an escalation procedure whereby it is only triggered if an alarm is not acknowledged within a certain time-frame after an initial email or SMS text alert is sent. By utilising different coloured beacons you could also quickly see what sensor has triggered the alarm – for example temperature alarms could trigger a red beacon, water leaks a green beacon and other conditions an orange beacon.
All sensor types can activate an alarm beacon, including the iMeter & iMeter Lite’s Virtual Sensors. These virtual sensors allow the device to monitor other network equipment via SNMP and ping tasks. This opens up options such as triggering a beacon if an SNMP-enabled UPS enters a low-battery state or if a server does not respond to pings.
The iMeter Lite also features an internal buzzer which can alert users to potential threats. The internal buzzer is significantly quieter than the external alarm beacon so is best suited to small requirements or as a backup alerting method.
Deploying a Beacon with the interSeptor Pro
The interSeptor Pro features 2 x Dry-Contact Outputs per 8 x sensor inputs (see below image).
Sensors connected to each set of 8 x sensor ports can trigger the corresponding dry-contact outputs. Users can decide which of the connected sensors trigger the alerts and can also ‘postpone’ beacon activation so it only sounds after a sensor has been in an alarm state for a certain period of time.
If you have an environmental or power monitoring requirement where local alerting is of interest please don’t hesitate to contact us.
