Enhancing data centre security with AI

The data centre industry has proliferated over the last few years. A recent DLA Piper report revealed that the volume of investment in global data centres more than doubled year-on-year in 2021, rising to £51.5 billion. Despite economic and geopolitical challenges, the industry shows no signs of slowing down in the coming years.

 

As data centres grow, so will the need for greater security. Some organisations rely heavily on data centres. They don’t have physical assets like a shop or stock; their entire service is in the cloud and stored in a data centre.

 

A security breach can devastate a data centre. IBM reported that the average consequence of security breaches, particularly lost data, is £125 per record. With an average size of 25,575 records taken per incident, an attack can potentially cost £3 million.

 

Then there are all the other associated costs and adverse outcomes, such as repairing or replacing security systems, legal fees from litigation, increased insurance premiums, loss of revenue due to downtime, and damaged reputation that may lead to missing out on future contracts.

 

Data centres are investing in more advanced physical security to mitigate these risks. And this advanced security is smart.

 

Smart security technology
Advancements in security technology mean that many of the manual human-driven activities can now be replaced with computer-driven automated outcomes. AI technology is making this possible and therefore enhancing security to make it more efficient, effective, and reliable.

 

CCTV can distinguish between the movement of animals or trees and a potential intruder. Being able to tell these apart makes the technology far more efficient as it only alerts security personnel about potential intruders rather than wasting time investigating activity from animals or foliage.

 

As well as threats from intruders, CCTV systems can help to keep equipment running and prevent faults. CCTV can be programmed with algorithms to report the amount of movement in a specific area or lack thereof. This is particularly useful for ensuring engineers complete regular maintenance checks. If no movement is detected in a particular area after a certain time, an alert can be sent to prompt an engineer to carry out the check.

 

Additionally, other AI-enabled technologies, such as sensors, can detect changes in temperature and trigger an alarm if the temperature rises above a certain threshold. Engineers are notified and can monitor the situation and, if necessary, intervene to fix the issue before the incident escalates.

 

Access control is another system that has improved thanks to intelligent technology. These systems can be installed with an anti-tailgating and anti-pass-back facility, which ensures that only one authorised person enters and exits a room or area. Access control can also feature multi-factor authentication, more than just swiping a card across a card reader. This could be in the form of voice activation or retina scans and is typically installed for high-importance areas such as server rooms.

 

Bridging the gap
We are proud of our partnerships with leading security organisations, and we are a current Platinum Partner with Milestone Systems, which provides next-gen video management software.

 

One of Milestone’s impressive products is the Milestone AI Bridge. This cutting-edge software has been developed as a joint initiative with Nvidia. It is an API gateway that eases the integration of Intelligent Video Analytics (IVA) applications with a Video Management System (VMS).

 

The ‘tool kit’ provides a flexible architecture that allows third-party integration. AI specialists can incorporate their algorithms into the VMS, and the client can access outcomes, events, metadata, statistics, and video footage to analyse security activity.

 

Using the AI Bridge, companies can constantly update and refine algorithms on the same VMS, tailoring it to whatever their requirement. This provides them with a fluid, adaptable, and future-proof system.

 

Enhanced security
Storing vast amounts of sensitive information calls for flexible, responsive, bespoke systems that provide maximum security.

 

Using smart technology and software that automates tasks enhances security and makes it more accurate, efficient, and reliable. As with most things AI touches, data centres will become more secure, less costly to operate, and achieve higher performance metrics. It will be interesting to see just how far AI technology can take the security of data centres in years to come.

 

Our capabilities and expertise span 67 countries globally, using regional partners. We offer our customers the benefit of only working with one business, one PM, one delivery team, and one service team. This means we can fully embed our team within the customer’s business, getting to know the challenges and working on efficiencies for the most efficient and effective security delivery.

 

If you would like to find out more about our integrated security capabilities, please contact [email protected]