Most documents on the subject of enviromental impact on electronic equipment are derived from military standards (Mil-Hdbk-338B).
All the articles conclude that environmental factors lower the MTBF of electronic equipment and conclude that the exact effect is unpredictable. To counter this, IEEE, HRD5, CISCO, etc all recommend hot swap and redundant strategies.
However, because adverse environmental factors reduce the MTBF, product lifetime will be reduced, requiring higher maintenance, a reduction in Quality Of Service, extended warranties and reduced refresh cycle time.
The overall effect is a significant increase in total cost of ownership and reduction in network availability.
Case studies:
1. Case1; TBD
2. Case2; TBD
References;
CISCO:
TBD
APC;
reliability and MTBF of elec. Equipment
IEEE
Effect of environment factors on the reliability of electronicsystems and computers
Tochan, E.F.
Environment and Solar, 2000 Mediterranean Conference for
Volume , Issue , 2000 Page(s):45 - 47
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/CMPLES.2000.939858
Summary:The parameters of electronic systems reliability are related with various factors. This paper discusses the factors that affect reliability at the period of exploitation. Most of these factors are related with environmental condition. Therefore, we try to study the effect of the following factors on electronic systems reliability: temperature of the environment; humidity and atmospheric conditions; low pressure conditions; solar radiation and atmospheric contamination; and biological factors. A quantitative evaluation of electronics element reliability in the illustrative examples is given. Further research directions are recommended
[Carl Ingram]
HRD5
British document on predicting failure based on environmental/system factors
Guidelines to Understanding Reliability Prediction
HUAWEI
In a multi-service IP bearer network, reliability is of vital importance for carrier-class services. In general, the reliability of network equipment is the most important. Without network equipment reliability, link reliability and network reliability cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, reducing equipment faults means reducing maintenance time and improving the QoS