CAM-557

Water falling in the aisle and creeping toward the floor grilles

Four in the morning. A thin jet of water is falling from a downpipe running beside the pillar, and there’s already a sheet of it spreading over the floor tiles. On one side of the aisle stand the cooling units; on the other, the row of cabinets and the grilles the air comes up through. A technician is standing a few feet away, checking something, and hasn’t seen it yet. IRIS sees the shine of water on the floor, how much the patch has grown in the last few minutes and how far it’s from the nearest grille.

CAM-557 · PLANT AISLE · WATER ON FLOOR

What IRIS understands

What it recognizes in this scene

sheet of water on the floor
jet of water falling
downpipe beside the pillar
cooling unit
raised-floor grilles
technician checking the room
panels at the end of the aisle
row of cabinets

What this camera measures

An alert says something’s happening. The reading says how much.

4 minWater in sight for
3 m²+2 m²Wet area
1,2 mDistance to the nearest grille
1People in the aisle
03:41:22Video starts at

The figures on this screen are an example from the illustration, not any client’s measurement.

The rule

You decide once. IRIS applies it always.

water appears on the floor of a plant room and is still there after a minute

Then

alert the duty shift with the camera, the aisle and the time
open the live video of that camera in the control room
save the video from one minute before the water appeared

The instruction that set it up«Tell me if water shows up on the floor of any plant room, even a little, and tell me which aisle.»

What changes

What changes for whoever answers for physical security on site

Water in a data center makes no noise. It gets found when it reaches somewhere that matters, and by then it isn’t a puddle: it’s a breakdown, an insurance claim and a whole night of people working. With this camera the warning goes out while it’s still a small puddle, with the exact aisle and the video of the minute it started falling. Somebody closes a valve and puts a bucket down, and that’s all that happens that night. Here’s the limit, and it matters: IRIS sees the water that’s in plain sight. A drip inside the raised floor, as long as it doesn’t surface, isn’t visible to anybody through a camera — that’s what floor sensors are for. What the camera does is cover the whole aisle, which is far bigger than the spot where a sensor sits.

What people usually ask

Can it mistake a reflection on the floor for water?

It can, and it’s better said plainly: a polished floor shines, and at four in the morning it shines more. That’s why the rule doesn’t fire on a glint: it waits for the patch to stay and to grow, which is what a reflection doesn’t do. And that’s why the alert goes to a person with the video in front of them: checking takes ten seconds. One alert too many at four in the morning is far cheaper than a puddle nobody sees until eight.

And what if the water is under the raised floor?

Then IRIS doesn’t see it, and that has to be said as it is. A camera sees what’s in plain sight: while the water doesn’t surface through a joint or a grille, there’s nothing to look at. That gap is covered by the raised-floor sensors, which are there for exactly that. What the camera adds is the rest of the problem: as soon as the water reaches the surface, it is seen along the whole aisle and not only at the spot where a sensor sits, and there’s video of where it started.

So does it replace the water sensors?

No, and it doesn’t claim to. A sensor warns where it is placed, at night and with nobody around; a camera sees the whole aisle, but only what shows. They are two different things and they get along: the sensor says there’s water at its point, and the camera says where it’s coming from, how much it has grown, with the video of the moment it started. Whoever has sensors keeps them; whoever doesn’t, at least stops finding out in the morning.

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