IP Camera Guide Introduction
For MSPs a server room IP camera can help delight customers and boost profits. The right combination of features can make money and free up time for MSPs while also preventing downtime for customers.
This guide will help MSPs understand how to choose the best fit camera solution for their managed services and customer situation needs.
Not an MSP? That’s ok, this guide can still help you.
TL;DR
Don’t want to read the whole article? No problem, the Too Long; Didn’t Read version of all the good stuff is in the table below. The IP camera features are mapped to MSP needs.
MSP Need |
IP Camera Feature |
| Prevent human related failure by seeing what’s happening inside rooms on demand | IP Camera with live video streaming. Include low light features like infrared. |
| Prevent human related failure by knowing when someone is inside a room in real time | Motion detection with alerts and notifications. |
| Prevent heat related failure of server room equipment by knowing when the room temperature is too high | Most Effective: Thermal imaging with discrete temperature alerts and notifications. Minimum: Ambient temperature monitoring with room level temperature alerts and notifications. |
| Prevent humidity related failure of server room equipment | Humidity monitoring with alerts and notifications. |
| Prevent fluid related damage of server room equipment | Recorded video of activity in the room, and historical data for temperature, humidity and fluid. Ability to see events on one timeline to discover correlation between events. |
| Remotely check in or “visit” one or all rooms without needing to travel | IP Camera with live video streaming accessible securely via the internet. Include low light features like infrared. |
| For remote hands work, see what people are doing and provide guidance in real time | IP Camera with live video streaming accessible securely via the internet. |
| Accessible by technicians anywhere so they can respond quickly | A mobile app with push notifications. |
The Business Case for an IP Camera
As an MSP if you don’t have an IP camera in the IT rooms you manage for your customers you are missing out on an easy way to get more recurring revenue and to prevent your customers leaving you.
That’s because MSPs have used IP cameras to create new revenue streams by adding a room monitoring service offering for their customers. Some ways that MSPs have done this are:
- Make room monitoring standard for managed services. Include it in all new managed services sold, and include it in all customer renewals - with a justifiable increase to service rates
- Make room monitoring a new add on offering and sell to existing customers as a higher level of service
- Resell an IP camera solution to customers where there is a co-managed or customer-managed situation
The right IP camera can also help MSPs:
- Boost customer satisfaction (think retention) by knowing about issues before customers do
- Avoid outages
- Avoid unnecessary truck roles
- Perform room visits remotely
- Work with remote hands (customer or partner)
The MSP’s Number One Challenge – Humans Being Humans
Choose an IP camera with live video and motion detection that sends alerts when motion is detected. An IP camera catches humans doing human things for one reason and one reason only: to prevent human related failure in IT rooms.
Stop me if you have heard this before. In one of your customer’s server rooms something was causing servers to go offline. It was happening often, and no one could explain it. After weeks of it happening the customer was frustrated, and the MSP was pulling their hair out. So, in an act of desperation the MSP set up a stakeout and sent a technician to camp outside the customer’s server room.
A day passes without incident. Then on day two the MSP gets lucky. An employee at the site walks into the server room with a workout mat under their arm.
It turns out that the employee was using the server room as their personal workout space. Their workout mat was laid over the power cables and was pulling the power cords just enough to cause a short loss of power.
IT rooms are used for many things that they shouldn’t be, like storage rooms, janitor’s closets and more.
Our customers have shown us server rooms filled with Christmas trees, popcorn machines and many things that create a high risk of outage.
With the right IP camera MSPs can get visibility into what is happening so that they can hold their customers accountable and so they can minimize outages for their customers.
It’s Getting Hot in Here – Prevent Heat Related Failure
Look for an IP camera that can monitor temperature.
MSPs need to prevent outages when the temperature gets too hot inside server rooms. At the absolute minimum look for an IP camera that can monitor temperature inside the room (ambient temperature). The better choice is to select an IP camera with a thermal imaging camera.
Thermal imaging cameras outperform ambient temperature monitoring because a thermal imaging camera can detect heat in a small area and show where the heat problem is. Ambient temperature only detects when the room is hot, which is often too late.
An IP camera with a thermal imaging camera saved us at RF Code when the air conditioning unit in our head office server room failed and started blowing warm air. Read the story about how using a thermal imaging camera in our server room averted a heat related disaster.
Humidity: The Silent Electronics Killer – Prevent Humidity Related Failure
Look for an IP camera that includes humidity monitoring. MSPs can help customers avoid premature failure of IT equipment by monitoring the humidity inside server rooms.
MSPs can act us a trusted partner and inform customers when humidity is too high. Especially when humidity is high for sustained periods of time. Customers can use humidity information from MSPs to investigate air conditioning for faults or explore de-humidifier solutions.
Water and Servers Don’t Mix - Prevent Fluid Related Failure
Look for an IP camera that can support wireless fluid sensors. Every second counts and MSPs need early warning to act quickly and prevent failure. Especially when water is involved.
Wireless fluid sensors provide a superior solution versus wired because they are fast and easy to install and provide the option to place multiple fluid sensors exactly where they are needed in a room for the most effective coverage.
A fluid sensor can also prevent injury. By knowing that fluid is on the floor MSPs can warn customers and technicians before they enter the room so that they don't slip, fall and get injured.
Work Faster and Smarter - Speed up Issue Investigation
Look for an IP camera with software that makes it easy to review history and correlated events, including:
- Recorded video
- Temperature history
- Humidity history
- Fluid history
- A single timeline view of events
MSPs can speed up issue investigation and resolution by being able to see what happened inside the customer’s server room leading up to and after any issues. The right IP camera can help MSPs hold their customers accountable when needed.
Be Effective Without Being There – Remote Check In, Remote Hands
Look for an IP camera with live video streaming accessible securely via the internet. When it’s not possible to visit customer sites frequently or to quickly get to a customer site when there is an issue, MSPs need an IP camera that will make it possible to work effectively from a remote location.
MSPs can save time and improve customer satisfaction by performing regular remote check ins. A regular one-minute remote check-in can replace on site visits and save time and money. And when the IP camera has thermal imaging, humidity monitoring, fluid detection and historical reporting the MSP can know about potential or current issues before customers do. Look for an IP camera with low light technology like infrared because most server rooms are dark most of the of the time.
The live video stream on an IP camera can also help MSPs guide remote hands (like customer’s people or a partner’s technician) in a customer room far easier than a video call on a mobile phone. See what the person is doing in real time while guiding them through troubleshooting or resolution steps.
Accessible From Anywhere - Respond Quickly
Look for an IP camera that has a mobile app with push notifications or a mobile friendly web app that is accessible securely via the internet.
With push notifications and access on mobile devices MSPs can be effective from anywhere. MSPs will never miss alerts and can respond quickly to issues so they know before customers do.
The Right IP Camera
The right IP camera can help MSPs avoid the customer question all MSPs dread - “Why didn’t you know about it?”.
IP cameras have evolved and now offer more for MSPs than just a video feed and motion detection.
