PE-15(1): Automation Support

PE-15(1): Automation Support requires you to deploy automated water detection near system locations (for example, data centers, telecom rooms, or critical IT closets) and route alerts to defined personnel or roles through defined mechanisms so response actions trigger quickly. Operationalize it by documenting sensor placement, alert routing, and ongoing testing, then retaining proof that alerts work end-to-end. ¹

Key takeaways:

• You need automated detection of water near the system, plus documented alerting targets and methods. ¹
• Auditors will look for end-to-end evidence: sensor coverage rationale, alert configuration, and test records that show alarms reach the right responders. ¹
• The fastest path is to assign an owner, define “near the system,” standardize alert routes, and schedule recurring tests with retained artifacts. ¹

The pe-15(1): automation support requirement sits in the Physical and Environmental Protection (PE) family and focuses on a practical failure mode: water intrusion near systems. Water events (leaks, sprinkler discharge, HVAC condensate, flooding) create two hard problems at once: immediate availability risk (outages, equipment damage) and follow-on security risk (unplanned downtime, emergency access, rushed changes, and gaps in monitoring).

PE-15(1) is narrow by design. It does not ask you to rebuild facilities engineering. It asks you to (1) detect water near the system and (2) alert specific recipients through specific mechanisms. Your job as a Compliance Officer, CCO, or GRC lead is to make the requirement assessable: define scope, assign accountability, ensure the technical configuration exists, and keep evidence that the automation works.

This page translates the requirement into an implementation pattern you can execute quickly: scoping decisions, sensor strategy, alerting design, testing cadence, evidence collection, and the exam questions that commonly stall teams.

Regulatory text

Excerpt (PE-15(1)): “Detect the presence of water near the system and alert {{ insert: param, pe-15.01_odp.01 }} using {{ insert: param, pe-15.01_odp.02 }}.” ¹

What the operator must do (in plain terms):

1. Implement automated water detection in the physical areas considered “near” your in-scope systems (your boundary decision). ¹
2. Configure automated alerting so that when water is detected, alerts go to pre-defined recipients (roles or named teams) through pre-defined mechanisms (ticketing, paging, SMS, monitoring system, building management system integration, or equivalent). ¹
3. Prove it works with repeatable tests and retained evidence that shows the end-to-end chain from sensor trigger to human (or on-call) notification. ¹

Plain-English interpretation of the requirement

PE-15(1) expects “automation support” for environmental detection and response. For water, that means you are not relying on someone noticing a puddle during a walkthrough. Detection should be sensor-based, and notification should be automatic and routed to the people who can act.

The two parameter placeholders in the text matter operationally:

• Who gets alerted: a defined role (for example, Facilities On-Call, Data Center Operations, Security Operations, or IT On-Call) with coverage that matches your operating hours. ¹
• How they get alerted: a defined mechanism (for example, building monitoring console, email distribution, paging system, or ticketing integration) that you can test and show evidence for. ¹

Who it applies to (entity and operational context)

This requirement commonly applies where you align to NIST SP 800-53 for:

• Federal information systems (agency-operated environments). ¹
• Contractor systems handling federal data (for example, regulated cloud/hosting, managed services, or enterprise systems in scope for federal contracts). ¹

Operationally, it applies anywhere the “system” has a physical footprint you control or manage through a third party, including:

• Data centers and colocation cages
• Network/telecom rooms and MDF/IDF closets
• On-prem server rooms and critical storage areas
• Any location where a water event could affect confidentiality, integrity, or availability of in-scope systems

If your systems are hosted by a third party (cloud, colo, managed hosting), PE-15(1) becomes a shared-responsibility control: you either (a) inherit the control via the provider’s facility controls and get evidence, or (b) implement equivalent detection for any facilities you still operate.

What you actually need to do (step-by-step)

Use this as an execution runbook.

1) Set scope and boundary: define “near the system”

Document what “near” means for your environment so placement decisions are defensible in an audit. Examples of defensible definitions include:

• Within the room housing in-scope systems
• Within areas where water could realistically reach the systems (under raised floors, near cooling/HVAC condensate lines, near building water lines, beneath sprinkler zones)

Create a short “coverage rationale” that lists each in-scope location and why the chosen sensor placement covers the credible water paths.

2) Assign ownership and establish RACI

PE-15(1) fails most often due to unclear handoffs between Facilities and IT/security. Assign:

• Control owner (accountable for compliance and evidence)
• Facilities/Building engineering (installs/maintains sensors)
• IT operations / SOC / NOC (receives and triages alerts if applicable)
• Third party contacts (colo provider, building management, landlord)

Daydream tip (earned, not decorative): capture this mapping once in Daydream so the control record always points to the owner, the operating procedure, and the evidence set you expect every cycle.

3) Choose detection approach and map it to locations

Common patterns:

• Spot leak sensors near known leak sources (HVAC units, water lines, sump pits).
• Rope/cable sensors under raised floors or along perimeters where water spreads.
• BMS integration if the building already monitors leak detection and can forward alarms.

Your decision criteria should be practical: coverage, maintainability, false alarm rate, and your ability to produce evidence that alerts trigger consistently.

4) Define the alerting target and mechanism (the two “parameters”)

Write down:

• Alert recipients: role-based is better than a named person. Include primary and backup contacts (for example, on-call rotation). ¹
• Alert mechanism: specify the system of record (paging tool, ticketing system, monitoring platform, or BMS console) and how alerts are routed (integration, email gateway, webhook). ¹

Minimum operational expectation: if the sensor triggers, a responsible party receives an actionable alert with location context.

5) Implement and validate end-to-end

Do not stop at “installed.” Validate the full chain:

• Sensor detects water (or simulated trigger)
• Signal reaches monitoring/alerting platform
• Alert routes to the right queue/on-call
• Recipient acknowledges and response starts (ticket created, page acknowledged, or equivalent)

6) Write the procedure your responders will follow

Keep it short and usable:

• What an alert means (and common false positives)
• How to verify (camera check, facilities walkdown, contact provider)
• Escalation thresholds (for example, if water is confirmed near equipment)
• Documentation steps (ticket notes, photos, provider incident reference)
• Post-incident follow-up (repair, sensor reset, lessons learned)

7) Operationalize testing and maintenance

Define a repeatable test method (wet test, simulated sensor activation, or BMS alarm test) and a maintenance plan (battery checks, calibration if applicable, replacement). Your goal is assessability: you can show that detection and alerting works, and you can show it repeatedly.

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Auditors typically want evidence in four buckets: design, implementation, operation, and results.

Evidence type	What to retain	What it proves
Design	Water detection/alerting standard; scope statement defining “near the system”; coverage rationale by site/room	You made a deliberate, risk-based design decision
Implementation	Sensor inventory (location, type, serial/asset tag); diagrams/floor plans; installation/acceptance records	Sensors exist where you claim they exist
Alerting configuration	Screenshots/exports of alert rules, routing, on-call group mapping, ticket/paging integration	Alerts go to the defined recipients via defined mechanisms 1
Operational results	Test logs, tickets from test events, alert receipts, incident records (if any), corrective actions	The automation works end-to-end, not just on paper

Practical evidence note: a single screenshot of a sensor dashboard rarely satisfies assessors. Pair configuration evidence with a test artifact that shows an alert was generated and received.

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Expect these questions:

1. “Show me where ‘near the system’ is defined.”
   Hangup: teams assume the phrase is self-explanatory and never document boundary decisions.

2. “How do you know you have adequate coverage?”
   Hangup: no coverage rationale, no mapping between critical assets and leak points.

3. “Who receives the alert, and how do you ensure coverage after hours?”
   Hangup: alerts go to an inbox instead of an on-call mechanism, or the on-call list is not maintained.

4. “Demonstrate an end-to-end test.”
   Hangup: you have installation evidence but no proof that alert routing works.

5. “If a third party runs the facility, what do you get from them?”
   Hangup: inherited controls are asserted without contract language, SOC reports, or incident/testing evidence.

Frequent implementation mistakes and how to avoid them

• Mistake: treating PE-15(1) as “Facilities-only.”
  Fix: make response routing explicit. If IT/SOC must act, they must be in the notification path.

• Mistake: relying on email-only alerts.
  Fix: use an alert mechanism that matches your operating model (on-call paging or ticketing with escalation). Keep email as a secondary path if you want, but prove the primary path works.

• Mistake: no evidence because tests are informal.
  Fix: require a ticket for each test, attach screenshots of the alert, and record who acknowledged.

• Mistake: inherited control with no proof.
  Fix: require the third party to provide facility monitoring statements and evidence artifacts (procedures, test attestations, incident summaries, or audit reports) aligned to your system boundary.

Enforcement context and risk implications

No public enforcement cases were provided in the source material for this requirement, so focus on audit and mission risk. ¹

Risk implications are straightforward:

• Availability risk: water intrusion can cause outages and equipment loss.
• Security risk: emergency response often introduces access-control exceptions and rushed changes, which increases the chance of policy breaks or incomplete logging.
• Audit risk: inability to demonstrate alert routing and testing is a common “design/operating effectiveness” gap because PE-15(1) is easy to describe but often under-evidenced. ¹

A practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

Use phases to move fast without inventing time-to-implement guarantees.

First 30 days (Immediate)

• Name the control owner and publish a one-page standard: scope, “near the system” definition, and alerting targets/mechanisms. ¹
• Inventory in-scope locations and identify where water could reach systems (HVAC, water lines, raised floors, sprinkler zones).
• Decide ownership boundaries with any facility third parties and request their existing detection/alerting documentation.

By 60 days (Near-term)

• Install or confirm sensors for each in-scope location; document placement and asset inventory.
• Configure alerting rules and escalation paths; verify the correct recipients and mechanisms.
• Run at least one controlled end-to-end test per location (or per standardized sensor/alerting pattern) and retain evidence artifacts.

By 90 days (Operationalize)

• Formalize recurring tests and maintenance tasks in your work management system.
• Add PE-15(1) evidence collection to your GRC calendar (tests, screenshots/exports, ticket samples).
• If you track controls in Daydream, link the control to the owner, procedure, and the recurring evidence checklist so audits stop becoming scavenger hunts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do we need water detection sensors in every room with any IT equipment?

Scope it to “near the system” within your authorization boundary and credible water paths. Document your definition and coverage rationale, then deploy sensors where a water event could affect in-scope systems. ¹

Can we inherit PE-15(1) from our colocation provider or cloud provider?

Yes, if the provider operates the facility controls, but you still need evidence that water detection and alerting exists and that alerts reach responsible responders (either theirs, yours, or both). Treat it as a third-party dependency with clear artifacts and review points. ¹

What counts as an acceptable “alert mechanism”?

Any defined mechanism that reliably notifies the intended recipients and can be tested and evidenced (for example, paging/on-call, ticketing, monitoring platform alerts, or BMS alarms routed to a staffed console). Write down the mechanism and keep configuration evidence. ¹

How do we prove the control works without creating a real leak?

Use a controlled test method supported by your sensor/BMS (for example, a test function or simulated activation). Retain a ticket or record showing the trigger time, alert generation, recipient delivery, and acknowledgement.

Who should receive the alerts: Facilities or IT?

Route alerts to whoever can take immediate action for your environment, and document the decision. In many environments Facilities validates and remediates the leak while IT coordinates system protection or shutdown, so dual-routing is common if both have response tasks. ¹

What’s the minimum evidence set auditors expect for PE-15(1)?

A written scope/definition of “near the system,” proof of installed detection, proof of configured alert routing to defined recipients via defined mechanisms, and test records that show alerts were received and handled. ¹

Footnotes

1. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 OSCAL JSON