Why you should refuse the paper registration of visitors in the data center

And not only the data center. The opinion that is formed below applies to all types of paper registration in any company. Despite the fact that over the past few decades, technology has advanced so far that such a breakthrough even fiction writers were unable to predict, one thing remains unchanged - these are the logs. Paper journals, where you need to enter your name, put down the time of the site visit and sign.



The registration system of this type remains unchanged for tens or even hundreds of years. But all this is just a relic of the passing era of paperwork. Nowadays, there are several reliable digital visitor registration systems, which should be said that they simplify the life of the company.



Such systems are easy to install and configure, and damage to the local copy of the visitors' log usually does not affect anything - the data is also stored in a common center (cloud or server common to the company). Digital registration of visitors is particularly relevant for data centers, where safety and reliability are crucial. In data centers, in almost all, the care and arrival of full-time employees and third-party visitors is carefully recorded. You enter the DC - register, go out of it - the same thing. Without registration anywhere, but the paper must already be forgotten.

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The digital systems of visitors, according to many users, are very convenient. They allow you to ensure reliable and quick fixation of guests and staff of the data center. This is convenient in many cases. For example, often the management of companies leasing capacity in DC, requests from the operating company a list of its employees who have visited the data center over the past couple of weeks or months. There can be many reasons: monitoring employee performance, investigations, safety considerations. Such companies request names, e-mail, signatures of employees - and it can be difficult to provide all of this in the form of paper documents. But the digital registration system provides fast transfer of the necessary data. Imagine that a company that owns data centers located in several countries or regions of one country needs to provide data to partners about the employees of a partner company who have visited DCs in the last couple of months. If the study is conducted on paper, the preparation of a data sample may take a long time.



But if everything is stored in digital form - the system can easily create a sample of any type, arbitrarily complex, with splitting data into different data centers. If we were talking about paper, then this would require the work of many DC staff with paper registration books. It is long, expensive and inefficient.



In some cases, the operator DC must provide the data described above for security reasons. Certification of certain levels requires fixing all the actions of the company's guests. Scanning paper journals with notes is impractical. But digital systems, gradually replacing paper, are ideal for this.



Another reason to introduce a digital registration system is the first impression. The data center itself is a high-tech facility, inside of which is a mass of equipment that performs an important task. And the entrance to the data center should be as modern as the equipment placed in it. Visitors (partners and customers) who have to sign in a paper magazine, understand that you are somewhat behind the times. Digital registration not only looks new and modern, it also allows you to form an opinion about the company on the part of the visitor. If the theater begins with a hanger, then the DC - with the procedure for registering visitors (not always and not everywhere, of course, but in many cases this is the case). The first impression is very important, and in DC this impression is formed during registration. Many digital registration systems work automatically, recognizing employees, for example, by badge or face (retina, etc.).







The automatic digital visitor registration system replaces the secretary who, by the way, may make mistakes. If necessary, the system will let the staff know that at the entrance is a truck with arrived equipment or a representative of a partner company who has come to discuss something.



Plus, paper is saved (although this is not so significant for many companies). The same company Equinix has many servers on almost all continents. If this company had to work with paper, accounting, auditing and monitoring employees and visitors would be an extremely difficult operation. Plus, such a job would take a lot of paper. And for Equinix, the fact that the paper can not be used was a decisive moment in terms of the choice of replacing its current registration system. Some other data center operators have done the same.



For "digital concierge" do not need super-complex equipment. Enough tablet and central server. Each registered person will be recorded in the toolbar - and you can see the photo, name and time of arrival or departure. The system can be integrated with some other objects in the DC. This is necessary, for example, to prioritize visitors. The employee of the company has one priority, the visitor has another. Accordingly, the implementation of the configured security policies can be monitored by the described digital system.



In general, it removes the load from the company's full-time employees and makes it easier to work. Plus, the digital system of this type is safer than paper that can be stolen or photographed.