A brief overview of the global market for physical IT solutions.
According to experts, one of the main criteria for assessing the reliability and stability of a company is ensuring the smooth operation of its information system.
The concept of IT security has long been firmly established in the familiar list of tasks solved by almost any company. This concept itself can be divided into several main components, such as technical, logical and physical security. It is impossible to determine which of these components is more important and which is less.
At present, despite the consequences of the crisis, a huge number of organizations and companies in Russia allocate quite serious funds for the development of the IT structure, as well as for technical and logical security. But at the same time, it is often not possible to see sufficient attention to the physical security of the IT resource. Although there are positive trends and more and more managers give due assessment to the importance of this issue.
It is well known that there are at least 7 main risk factors for information loss from physical impact:
— fire;
— water;
— smoke and corrosive gases;
— explosion;
— collapse (falling debris);
— unauthorized access;
— vandalism.
Lack of due attention to protection from such impacts threatens the existence and operation of the entire IT structure of the enterprise, which, in turn, threatens the loss of investments, prestige and funds, up to complete bankruptcy. If you look closely at the history of large and medium-sized companies, government organizations in recent years, you can find a number of examples from life, when insufficient attention to issues of protecting the IT structure from physical impact led organizations to very sensitive financial losses.
If we make a brief overview of the world market of solutions for physical IT security, then at its origins stood the German company «Lampertz». The world's first security room was created by this company and installed in Germany in 1982. In the next almost fifteen years, the company «Lampertz» remained the only manufacturer of security rooms in Europe. In the early 90s, a similar solution was created in the USA, but it practically «did not go beyond the country». In the late 90s, companies began to appear on the European market that offered their technical solutions in this direction. Today, we can name several such companies producing modular IT security rooms. These are: Rittal GmbH (formerly the company «Lampertz»), ProRZ, PriorIT, SME, Remtech. The first two are represented in Russia: Rittal/Lampertz, which our company Exol (having the status of a «Competence Center») actively «promotes» on the Russian market, and the solution of the SME company, which is offered by the company LANIT. In addition, soon the products of the company ProRZ, which is currently actively working in this direction, will come to the Russian market.
If we conduct a brief analysis of the proposed solutions, then among the security rooms we can distinguish two types of solutions, depending on the level of protection. The maximum level of protection corresponds to the security room LSR 18.6E from Rittal/Lampertz. This is the highest level of protection, exceeding even the requirements of EN 1047-2. In terms of its protective properties, the solution from PriorIT falls into the same category, but it loses out when considering the issues of installation and maintenance. The Rittal/Lampertz room can be installed in an already operating data center without shutting down the equipment, while PriorIT requires shutting down the IT equipment during the installation period.
Of course, not all customers have access to a solution of this level. We include the so-called medium-level security rooms to the next, slightly lower, level of protection: these are solutions from Remtech, SME, ProRZ. Rittal/Lampertz also has such a room – LER Extend. In our opinion, in terms of its characteristics, protective properties, quality of execution, and price, the best solution in this segment today is from ProRZ – the F 90+ security room. ProRZ was founded in 2005 by former Lampertz employees and has become widely known in the European market in five years. By the way, by the end of this year, ProRZ promises to present its new solution for the maximum level of protection to the market.
To summarize the above, we can conclude that there is a sufficient range of solutions for ensuring the physical security of an IT structure. Organizations and companies only need to start paying more attention to this issue and actively use the solutions offered by manufacturers.