The Benefits of Surveillance Cameras for Your Server Room

by Stephanie Faris on Monday, July 06 6:00

It s hard to go anywhere these days without stepping into the eye of a camera. They re in the ceilings of grocery stores, on street corners, and even incorporated in the landscaping of homes. Many office-based businesses have stopped short of installing surveillance cameras out of respect for worker privacy, but there are some areas of a building that mandate top security.

Whether your server room is located under the same roof as your office space or in a dedicated building across town, security is a top concern. Surveillance cameras can ease your worries and keep your equipment safe. Here are some top benefits of installing surveillance cameras in the space that houses your server.

A Deterring Force

For a low fee, you can set up one or more cameras in your server space and inform all workers that they re capturing video 24/7. Only your top management staff needs to know whether that footage is being monitored on a regular basis. The staff members who regularly access that space will assume they re being recorded and behave accordingly. This is also true of any non-technical staff you bring in to work in the room, including server movers and server room cleaning personnel.

Monitoring Activity

Your server room is likely locked down to only authorized personnel. By having cameras in the room, your team can review footage when it becomes necessary. If you have questions about whether a backup tape was changed at a specific time, for instance, you can backtrack to that date and time and view the video yourself. If a piece of equipment is suddenly missing, you ll have the footage on tape of that item before, after, and during the time it was removed from the room.

Remote Monitoring

Did someone leave the lights on over the weekend? Why did the temperature suddenly spike in the room? Surveillance cameras offer your IT staff the ability to remotely see into the room to determine if someone needs to travel to the location to deal with any problems. This is especially beneficial for those server rooms that are located a considerable distance from your IT personnel.

Remote Troubleshooting

If you ve ever had to walk an employee through setting up a server or troubleshooting issues, you likely know how frustrating it can be. Through the use of a camera in the room, you can see the employee, making it easier to communicate by phone. Once the system being troubleshot is online, you can remote in and take over if you d prefer, but until that time, a surveillance camera will let you walk the employee through the steps of getting the equipment set up, plugged in, and connected to the network.

Surveillance cameras are a great way to safeguard sensitive areas of an office. Because server rooms house a business s crucial data, it s an essential place for surveillance cameras, whether they re monitored 24 hours a day or simply reviewed when questionable activity takes place. While surveillance cameras aren t the best option for every server room setup, they re a great option for businesses that are concerned about security.