Server room temperature monitoring

[Danp]

Just had the a\c fail in our server room, I only noticed as one minor switch packed up! Does anyone have a monitor that would email out when it hits a threshold?

[FragglePete]

We've got a CM-2 from The Climate - it's setup so it sends a SMS text alert (via an e-mail gateway) if certain thresholds are exceeded. Monitors Light, Sound, Humidity and Temperature out of the box but you can add extra sensors and cameras on it.

 

Pete

[truebluesteve]

We've got a CM-2 from The Climate - it's setup so it sends a SMS text alert (via an e-mail gateway) if certain thresholds are exceeded. Monitors Light, Sound, Humidity and Temperature out of the box but you can add extra sensors and cameras on it.

 

Pete

 

Same here.... Very good piece of kit!

[MatthewL]

Have a look at the APC NetBotz kit, its really good and not badly priced either.

[ADMaster]

I have Temperature @lert it is a USB device that will send emails for high and low temps.

 

Not to highjack the thread, but what is a good temp for the server room? I have one room that gets into the high 80's low 90's (30 - 35) if I do not keep the door open in the summer.

 

Thanks,

[southhamster]

You might be able to configure nagios to do something - maybe using the server motherboard/ambient temp sensor?

Some switches can also monitor temperature - I don't know if there's some way maybe of using snmp to monitor that, again maybe with nagios or similar.

Ideal server room temp - I was always told the lower the better although aircon costs can make it very expensive.

Lateral thinking is, locate the server room on the North side of the building, possibly using louvred but secure vents to the outside with an extract fan on a temp sensor. It always amuses me to see schools who have installed an extract fan in the (completely sealed) server room with no inlet vent. How does that work?

Which reminds me, it's so annoying to see brand new schools (BSF PFI) with IT Suites on the south side of a building, massive non-opening windows and then aircon installed afterwards to remove the heat. grrrr. Do architects do it on purpose?

 

I'd be a bit concerned about temps above 20-25 deg C. 30-35 sounds a bit much!

I'd also think about humidity - I'd assume that drier is better to avoid oxidising contacts and increase heat dissipation, but low humidity does increase the effect of static electricity.

[glennda]

ive used room alert before, nice and robust and customizable

[plexer]

I have Temperature @lert it is a USB device that will send emails for high and low temps.

 

Not to highjack the thread, but what is a good temp for the server room? I have one room that gets into the high 80's low 90's (30 - 35) if I do not keep the door open in the summer.

 

Thanks,

 

Have a look at what the kit says it's happy with it's really consistency that's the key.

 

Ben

[Elison]

We've got a CM-2 from The Climate - it's setup so it sends a SMS text alert (via an e-mail gateway) if certain thresholds are exceeded. Monitors Light, Sound, Humidity and Temperature out of the box but you can add extra sensors and cameras on it.

We use it as well.

[old_n07]

We've got a monitor that plugs into our APC UPS and monitors temp via powerchute, it performs shut downs based on a temp threshold set in the software.

 

We lost Aircon a few months ago as sites were working on the electric and had the phase off on a Saturday (didn't tell IT) and they forgot to turn it back on again, the first we knew was when the Equalogic SAN's, EMC SAN and blade centres started emailing about temperature. This would have been picked up in the week but at a weekend it was lucky that I checked my email when I saw 130 new emails on my phone.

 

This highlighted the fact that we needed propper warnings so the BMS system has now been configured to automatically SMS message the duty caretaker, head of IT and head of estates should anything happen again as this has temp monitors in the server room but nothing had been configured, and the APC module bought for the UPS.

 

We were lucky in that we didn't loose anything despite seeing intake temps of 70 degrees reported but it doesn't mean that the serviceable life of components hasn't been reduced and we will get premature failures down the line.

[edie209]

We've got a CM-2 from The Climate - it's setup so it sends a SMS text alert (via an e-mail gateway) if certain thresholds are exceeded. Monitors Light, Sound, Humidity and Temperature out of the box but you can add extra sensors and cameras on it.

 

Pete

 

Same here, although it took a Air Con failure to get it

[Meldrew]

I like the idea to get a temperature warning system, but looking at the costs, I might just create one out of an arduino/netduino... That should keep the costs down.

 

Meldrew

[Geoff]

Not to highjack the thread, but what is a good temp for the server room? I have one room that gets into the high 80's low 90's (30 - 35) if I do not keep the door open in the summer.

 

A temperature range of 16–24 °C (61–75 °F) and humidity range of 40–55% with a maximum dew point of 15 °C.

[Chris_]

I've been looking at the offering from Ubiquiti - mFi. Could get an mPort, and temperature sensor for less than £100. Could then add another two sensors to the mPort to make more use of it such as a PIR/door sensor so we could log when the server room door is opened or movement in there, or a current sensor so we can monitor power usage of the UPS and equipment.

[dhicks]

A temperature range of 16–24 °C (61–75 °F) and humidity range of 40–55% with a maximum dew point of 15 °C.

 

A Dell salesperson told me the other day that Dell's new server range is designed to run "at room temperature", which I guess means you can set the thermostat on the airconditioning to 24°C and leave them to it. I don't know how badly temperature affects battery performance on UPSes - our UPS batteries seemed to fail very quickly (about 18 months), and they should last longer than that. Our air conditioning is not up to the job, but we're now moving the whole server cupboard over the summer. We have issues installing a decent airconditioning unit with an external heat exchanger as we're right in a residential area, in a listed building, with neigbour's windows very close (a couple of metres). We might go for a snazzy water-cooled air conditioning unit in our new server cupboard, which transfers the heat to water from the mains - and you can even use that "waste" water and put it into a hot water tank for later.

[Geoff]

Well you can run at the upper range (Google runs at 26.7C/80F) however you need to be sure you can recover from an A/C failure fast (or have redundancy). Otherwise run cooler and have a little more wiggle room.

[lmgtfy]

We use the built in tools within iDrac that comes free as far as I know with most Dell servers. Was looking at it today to double check but it tells you intake air temperature as well as a load of other information and will send you alerts via whatever method you have setup I.e email. It also goes back along time historically so you can check patterns etc. built in power consumption stats look pretty cool as well, our servers are using on average 130 watts of a possible 800 watt.

[Danp]

Found a solution for £7.99

 

PC Laptop USB Powered Thermometer Temperature Sensor Data Recorder Mini #489 UK | eBay

 

It's currently running on a W7 machine that was in our server room and it sends email alerts to both our internal and external email addresses. Yes, I know this wont happen if the power goes off etc, but for our needs this is exactly what we need.

[Danp]

Also now have the data outputting to a webpage for live info, not bad for £8!

[adhutton]

We use The Climate as well, its good.

 

Whenever we had a power cut at school (we get quite a few!) the air con went off and didn't come back on, so the tempreature just went up and up hence the climate monitor. The monitor is on one of the UPS, so it keeps going even when there is a power outage.

 

Since then, I have managed to get our air con engineer to re-program our air con unit so that it reverts to 'last-known state' (i.e. power on) when the mains power is restored and so as soon as the power comes back on the air con wakes up

 

The aircon engineer told me that most aircon units are capable of that, but he did download a software (firmware?) update for ours when he sorted it out, so may be worth asking your engineer next time they come to service the unit.

 

Andrew

[Danp]

....

The aircon engineer told me that most aircon units are capable of that, but he did download a software (firmware?) update for ours when he sorted it out, so may be worth asking your engineer next time they come to service the unit.

 

I will ask him when he comes out to replace the unit in 2 weeks time! Fun and games that week...

[kearton]

Anyone know if these two products are the same thing please?

 

CM-2, The Original Climate Monitor::Climate Monitors::The Climate

RSE2X16 - Climate Monitor | Geist Global

(the images look almost identical, apart from the branding)

 

EDIT: For those who are using "The Climate", does the web interface look the same as this demo of the Geist product ??

Edited June 10, 2014 by kearton

[walkd]

We have a CM2 here and the interface is very similar, my guess would be the hardware is the same, just running their own code. Can't fault the device at the moment, just be careful when ordering external sensors, some plug straight in, others need additional adapters.

[kearton]

Any chance of a screenshot of your Climate interface for comparison please?

[walkd]

Sure, attached is the default screen out of the box.