Server Room Environment Monitoring? 40
WizardX asks: "At my new job we are in the process of starting to Do Things Right(tm). One of these things is putting the computer room (where the IT staff also resides), on its own cooling circuit. We want to monitor and track the temp and humidity in the room. The tracking part makes it more difficult. I really am not familiar with devices to do this. I plan on monitoring with MRTG, so a device that could plug into our network would be nice, but as long as it can dump the data to a computer (*nix or Windows, I really don't care) I will be happy. What have you seen or used?" I think the submitter is looking for something along the line of these devices, but maybe some of you have run into something better?
Netbotz (Score:3, Informative)
Check these out [netbotz.com]
Re:Netbotz (Score:1)
http://www.netbotz.com/products/wb500.html [netbotz.com]
Re:Netbotz (Score:1)
Host based (Score:2, Interesting)
Good luck.
Andrew
Re:Host based (Score:4, Informative)
Outside the box, inside the room (Score:3, Funny)
Depends on your budget (Score:4, Informative)
A cheaper alternative is APC's solution [apcc.com] while providing just the environment info you want.
If you are also looking into remote power management, Server Technology's Power Tower [servertech.com] product is being integrated with a new environmental device (for $100-200 or so, according to reports) which allows you to keep your interactions and monitoring all on one interface for environmental and power both.
Re:Depends on your budget (Score:1)
It also has dry contacts for things like door sensors or HVAC alerts.
Re:Depends on your budget (Score:1)
APC Ups (Score:1)
They pull SNMP data from the UPS as well as tempature information from the room.
Check it out: http://apcc.com/products/configure/index.cfm?base
LightsoutNetworks (Score:2)
-psy
Buy or build your own (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want to roll your own: http://quozl.netrek.org/ts/ [netrek.org]
I bought the kit for the one on the second link and it works great.
Set up your own... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Set up your own... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Set up your own... (Score:1)
A PLC? (Score:1)
You could do this with a Momentum PLC (one of the low-end of Modicons product lines) and a humidity sensor or two. For the PLC, you would need an I/O base and either a CPU module (which plugs into the I/O base)if you want to perform log
Re:A PLC? (Score:1)
Hmm.. (Score:1)
MRTG is great for tracking. Almost any decent piece of network-connected hardware will have a temperature sensor in it that can be polled via SNMP (which MRTG uses by default). It's just a little more complicated than the default setup. Be careful though, I've be
Re:Hmm.. (Score:2)
But for the most part, they are reliable....
You can buy an analog sensor for like $200 (Score:2)
They're cheap, effective and don't break.
Re:You can buy an analog sensor for like $200 (Score:2)
We use (Score:2)
FreezeAlarm? (Score:2)
Telaid IP Tattletale (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll have to speak up for our own product here. The IP Tattletale family [telaid.com] is a sysadmin-friendly set of devices for exactly this, and more. The original Tattletale, still sold, is a POTS-line based product with a Central Station contract. This one will fit your needs much better.
It can spit out everything via SNMP; with an add-on license you can even use the device itself to aggregate other SNMP-based devices. For large-scale environments, you can roll your own MRTG or RRDtool configs, or you can buy the IP Tattletale Central, which is a 1U linux box that hold historical data and can push out threshold settings and configs to many Tattletale units.
</commercial>
Yeah, Right. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, right. That's why you decided to Ask Slashdot for some bastardized, hacked up, freebie solution. Give me a break.
If you want to handle environmental monitoring and control, and "do it right", then you should be talking to these guys [johnsoncontrols.com] about stuff like this [johnsoncontrols.com] and this [johnsoncontrols.com] and this [johnsoncontrols.com].
Re:Yeah, Right. (Score:1)
How about Pinnacle? (Score:2)
You might want to look at Pinnacle Datalogger [www.pinnaclet.com], which has an ethernet jack and an IP stack, and a web interface, etc... It does temp and humidity.
Check out NAGIOS (Score:1)
Popcorn! (Score:2)
Find a college EE intern ... (Score:1)
Omega Engineering (Score:3, Interesting)
I have one at home and it works great.
Web reporting termometer (Score:2)
WeatherDuck - $179 (Score:2)
Weather Duck [itwatchdogs.com].
It needs a PC to run its software but seems to fit your bill, especially SNMP for MRTG. I would imagine any old junky PC would be just fine.
iButtons (Score:1)
monitoring.
Fire Suppression and Liquid Sensors (Score:2)
for me (Score:1)
To do things right? (Score:2)
How are you restricting access to your computer room?
Why are you not getting in touch with professional people?
Re:To do things right? (Score:2)