Datacenter preemptive measures for improving protection using IOT sensors
One example method includes receiving information concerning a threat to stored data, correlating the information with a preemptive action which, when taken, prevents harm to the stored data by the threat, implementing the preemptive action before the threat causes harm to the stored data, and taking an action to at least partly return a system associated with the stored data to a pre-threat state. The threat may be a natural disaster, or a human-caused condition, for example.
1. A system, comprising:
a sensor array comprising one or more sensors operable to monitor and report on one or more physical aspects of a physical volume within which elements of a data protection system are located, and one of the sensors that is operable to monitor and report on a physical aspect of the physical volume does not monitor or report on performance of a physical component;
one or more hardware processors; and
a non-transitory storage medium having stored therein instructions which are executable by the one or more hardware processors to perform operations comprising:
receiving information concerning a threat to stored data, wherein a portion of the information is generated by, and received from, the one or more sensors;
correlating the information with a preemptive action which, when taken, prevents harm to the stored data by the threat; and
implementing the preemptive action before the threat causes harm to the stored data, and implementation of the preemptive action is based on a cost to implement failback operations necessitated by implementation of the preemptive action and the implementation is also based on a confidence level that the threat is real and will cause harm to the data.
2. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein one of the sensors comprises an IoT edge device.
3. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the non-transitory storage medium is an element of a threat prediction engine, and the system further comprises a processing server configured to communicate at least indirectly with one or more of the sensors, and the processing server is operable to process raw data received from the sensors and is operable to pass processed raw data to the threat prediction engine.
4. The system as recited in claim 3 , further comprising a gateway by way of which one or more of the sensors is able to communicate with the processing server.
5. The system as recited in claim 3 , wherein the threat prediction engine is operable to control timing of implementation of the preemptive action.
6. The system as recited in claim 3 , wherein the threat prediction engine is operable to identify, and respond to, a false positive indication of a threat.
7. The system as recited in claim 3 , wherein the threat prediction engine is operable to consider and evaluate one or more inputs in reaching a conclusion as to whether or not to take a preemptive action, and what form any such preemptive action should take, and such inputs comprise any one or more of the following: a cost to implement a preemptive action; nature of the threat identified; a potential impact in terms of costs and/or other considerations if the preemptive action is not taken; a nature of any preemptive actions that may be taken; timing of any preemptive actions; a cost, in financial and/or time terms, of fail-back operations after the threat has passed; a confidence level that a perceived threat will materialize in such as way as to cause actual harm to the datacenter; expected results of implementing, or not, a preemptive action responsive to the threat identified; and, external content.
8. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the physical volume is defined by a building.
9. The system as recited in claim 8 , wherein the stored data resides at a datacenter at least partially located within the building.
10. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein one of the sensors is an element of a third party monitoring system.
11. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein one of the sensors is operable to monitor and report on operation of a physical component located within the physical volume.
12. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein implementation of the preemptive action causes a reduction to one or both of a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO), relative to what the RPO and/or RTO would have been, respectively, had the preemptive action not been taken.
13. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the preemptive action comprises copying some of the stored data.
14. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein one of the sensors is located within the physical volume.
15. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the harm prevented by the preemptive action comprises one or more of a loss of the stored data, theft of the stored data, and/or corruption of the stored data.
16. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the threat comprises a physical threat to the stored data, a natural disaster, or a human-caused condition.
17. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the preemptive action comprises any of: performing automatic failover of applications to a remote site; moving from asynchronous replication of data and/or applications to synchronous replication of data and/or applications; taking a snapshot of data prior to a next snapshot cycle; taking an application-consistent snapshot; powering up application resources in a remote location; recovering application data from an object store to block storage; performing auto-scale out of a service to a location remote from the physical volume; handing off a user session to a server in a location remote from the physical volume; and, shutting down a non-critical application.
18. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the one or more sensors comprise one or more of: a video camera; a motion detector; an infrared sensor; a smoke detector; a gas detector; a leak detector; a flooding detector; a humidity gauge; a temperature gauge; a seismometer; a burglar alarm; a voltage and/or current detector; a pressure sensor; an airflow meter; a noise detector; a chemical detector; a manually actuated sensor; a fire alarm; an intruder alert; a panic alert.
19. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the threat is a natural disaster, or a human-caused condition.
20. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the some of the information is received from a sensor that is not included in the one or more sensors and that is located external to, and remote from, the physical volume.