As more equipment is collocated or placed in remote sites, the need for security becomes extremely critical. In a networked world, protecting personal and business data from theft has become an issue of paramount importance.
Industries that exchange highly secure information, such as financials and health care sectors, have to abide by strict regulatory and compliance regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for health care, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for payment card industry and The Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) for federal agencies. These regulations mandate that organizations must limit physical access to information equipment to authorized individuals.
The bottom line: it is critical that access to IT equipment within cabinets is properly controlled and managed. A networked electronic access control solution at the cabinet level will prevent unauthorized physical access, and it will provide administrators with an audit trail of all authorized and unauthorized access attempts.
To optimize access control in your cabinet ecosystem, Chatsworth Products (CPI) recommends considering the following when selecting an access control solution:
- Seamless integration with the cabinet and PDU interface: Ideally, the electronic access control solution should be fully integrated with the intelligent PDU so that there is no need to power and network the locks separately. A single web interface that displays information on cabinet access and power distribution greatly simplifies white space management.
- Smart card authentication: Select a solution that recognizes most existing employee cards to avoid time-consuming programming.
- Audit trail for regulatory compliance: Most importantly, select an electronic access control solution that provides you with a record of every access attempt and easily integrates the information in the PDU interface or DCIM software for easy reporting.
- Integration with DCIM software: The ability to document, track and report access at each cabinet, as well as control access to cabinets and administer users quickly from the DCIM software is important.
Physical access control is a key element of Chatsworth Products’ total Data Center Cabinet Ecosystem Solution. To learn more about how to protect your assets and other key elements of a successful data center cabinet ecosystem, download the white paper now.
David Knapp, Product Marketing Manager