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Remote Monitoring
Have you recently become involved in a remote monitoring effort? Has your company recently realized the importance of remotely monitoring its network of revenue-generating equipment? This critical function was a well-understood discipline in traditional infrastructure enterprises like telecom, utility and railway companies. With the push toward leaner operational models, it has received somewhat less attention.
A well-run telemetry system can provide a stable network that meets or even exceeds customer expectations. A very small margin of perceived, competitive advantage in product / service reliability can result in dramatic gains in market share, in today's marketplace.
During periods of rapid network and infrastructure growth, remote monitoring can frequently be under-valued primarily because newer equipment generally has fewer operation 'glitches' or interruptions of service. However, doing so dramatically increases a company's risk of losing customers and seeing unpleasant declines in revenue.
In this diagram, T/Mon monitors remote alarms from DPS Telecom remotes, many other brands of RTUs, and SNMP, TL1, ASCII, and other devices...
In the contemporary marketplace, customers have grown accustomed to high levels of product and service quality and expectations are quite high. People are not as amazed by 'new' technology and honey-moon periods are much shorter than they used to be. Users are generally less tolerant of service interruptions or even temporary, perhaps technically minor product failures. Customers also seem more able and willing to switch to competing product and service providers when their perception of their current provider quality / reliability declines.
A quality remote monitoring system results in improved system reliability that translates very directly to increased customer satisfaction. This is often expressed at a management level as decreased customer dissatisfaction but the meaning is essentially the same.
Contemporary remote monitoring units will typically provide a wide variety of facility in addition to the traditional alarm collection capabilities. Serial ports can provide remote 'craft' access to equipment that would otherwise require a site visit.
In addition to the increasingly ubiquitous IP connectivity, flexibly designed remote monitoring units accommodate a range of transport options for the collected telemetry. Traditional communication media includes analog '202', digital '422/485' and common '232' channels. Some remote telemetry units support outbound and/or inbound dial-up for situations where plain old telephone service (POTS) is the only practical access.
Remote monitoring involves telemetry; technologies that allow for the collection and reporting of information from usually geographically disperse locations to a central network management location. This allows for the continuous determination of network health or status. It also facilitates the efficient application of maintenance and repair resources.
Remote monitoring software should not be limited to a small number of proprietary remotes. In a contemporary network, individual monitoring solutions for specific equipment frequently results in confusion when training personnel and managing alarms.
Remote monitoring software should also be designed around a proven, telemetry model. Consumer grade software often reflects a casual-monitoring approach more typical in IT environments. Mission critical equipment monitoring requires a more robust design paradigm.
Poor software design choices can result any number of challenges in deploying a quality remote monitoring system. Some popular IP based solutions have chosen UDP for delivering events and have significant vulnerability. When visibility of your network status and performance is most important, non-guaranteed delivery options are a poor choice for mission-critical events.
A quality remote monitoring system requires experienced design resources and the careful selection of high-quality product for your specific application. Generic, off-the-shelf solutions can be deceptively attractive in terms of initial purchase price. Integrating these can frequently involve substantial secondary costs that far exceed the sometimes higher initial cost of a custom solution.
DPS TMon master remote monitoring software is built on a client-driven design that maintains true operational status even as events are acknowledged and processed. If an event occurs that places a device in your network in degraded operational status, you will retain visibility to the degraded device status until it is restored. Clearing the event, while a critical management processing step, does not cause a DPS TMon telemetry monitoring system to display an all-clear status.
DPS TMon master remote monitoring software is deployed on contemporary, server class platforms. DPS TMon telemetry masters are not simply repackaged off-the-shelf workstations. The enclosure and power options are custom designed and manufactured for industrial strength.
DPS TMon master remote monitoring software is able to integrate an extremely wide variety of older, some might even say outdated, remote monitoring units and reporting protocols. It also supports an impressive number of media interface options for connecting to infrastructure that cannot be cost effectively upgraded or replaced with 'newer' transport facility. If you have an installed base of remotes that report telemetry over carefully tuned analog 202 channels, TMon can connect to the head-end without expensive external interface converters.
The DPS sales team works closely with DPS design engineers to insure that your needs are clearly identified. A multitude of factors are considered in developing a proposed solution that reflects your specific network and remote monitoring requirements. Quite frequently, the DPS design team can anticipate issues that have not been identified in environments where telemetry staff is struggling to keep up with management expectations.
This flexibility is made possible because DPS remote monitoring solutions involve a readily adaptable software component. This allows the DPS design team to quickly adapt an existing hardware platform to accommodate your application.
Commercial quality remote monitoring solutions like the DPS NetGuardians are designed for industrial use while maintaining the features that are found in the lighter-duty, consumer grade solutions. These remote telemetry units from DPS have 120/240VAC options but also offer 24/48VDC support for environments that implement these power options.
The DPS NetGuardian remote monitoring units vary in capacity from the 16 point NetGuardian 216 to the 64 point NetGuardian 864. Due to the flexible software architecture, the NetGuardian can be 'stacked' to provide up to 256 points of telemetry data from a single responder.
DPS NetGuardian remotes are able to manage both serial and parallel alarm input. They can also be ordered with a variety of configurations including TTL and GND reference parallel alarm circuits. Analog inputs are designed to monitor 0 to 90 volt power sources or to interface to 0-20 mAmp sensors.
DPS remote monitoring units typically have some number of relays that can be operated remotely to control site resources that would otherwise require onsite access.
DPS remote monitoring units are easy to install and configure from a browser using the embedded web interface. Configurations can be downloaded for archiving using your browser or standard FTP client. An entire network of DPS remote monitoring units can be conveniently administered from a central configuration repository using standard FTP commands.
The software architecture of the DPS remote monitoring units and the available serial ports enables DPS engineering to design custom site-level data processing for distributed alarm visibility.
Product enclosures for high-quality telemetry remotes will typically be fabricated from more durable materials. DPS uses light-weight aluminum for the enclosures designed for your solution. Even the DPS remote telemetry product chassis reflects a considered, custom design rather than a generic design more concerned with winning consumer awards than meeting your needs.
Real-World Examples of Remote Monitoring Tools Used in Real Networks
One client uses the TMon master remote monitoring software to provide real-time visibility to a network of communication equipment deployed from west Texas to east Louisiana and north to Arkansas. Included in the network are remotes from three different vendors with interfaces from analog 202 to contemporary IP connectivity.
A DPS TMon master remote monitoring software solution currently monitors busy communications in the Northeastern United States. A network stretching from northern New York through western South Virginia is maintained more easily with the increased visibility provided by this master station.
Another DPS client uses an intelligent power distribution unit (PDU) to monitor and control the voltage powering 12 external devices at each remote site. Each input is capable of handling 10 amps of current. For traditional remote monitoring functions the client uses the NetGuardian 216 G3. The 16 alarm points of this NetGuardian RTU complement the 16 alarm points present on the PDU device at sites where higher alarm capacity is needed for remote monitoring. This project had an initial phase of eight sites with more to be added later.
DPS clients use remote monitoring a wide range of industries and proof of this is a recent client who monitored an aquatic center and swimming pool complex containing 10 pools. The primary requirement of this remote monitoring system was that it needed to send alarms back to the central master using wireless technology. GSM was to be used to send e-mail or text messages to the client's cell phone. Variables to be monitored included chlorine, flow rate, temperature, and pressure. All of these sensors were easily available and connected to the 4-to-20-milliamp connectors on the NetGuardian 216 G3 and PDU device. Alarm for terminated using a 19 inch rear pluggable back panel. This back panel yields secure connections and easy installation should a unit need to be replaced in the future. In this way, DPS telecom technology that is typically used in a telecom or IT environment was successfully used in a remote aquatic center monitoring scenario.
Related Topics:
Remote Monitoring Tools
Related Remote Monitoring Devices:
Central Master Console: T/Mon
Alarm Remote (RTU): The NetGuardian 832A G5
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