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Server Room Environment Monitoring?

Posted by Cliff on from the keeping-your-boxen-comfortable dept.

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?

11 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. Netbotz by agrounds · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think Netbotz are the best I've seen so far. I have used them in multiple server rooms for security as well as monitoring. They have temp, humidity, a camera, and are web-enabled. Very sweet!

    Check these out

  2. Host based by acaird · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Some servers give you this for free. I use Suns (E450s) and they report CPU and environmental temperature. Then I use BigBrother and the temperature larrd module to graph it. BigBrother is at bb4.com and the modules (temp. and larrd) at deadcat.net. It's not fancy, but it was cheap and easy.

    Good luck.

    Andrew

    --
    Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely. E. Tufte
    1. Re:Host based by SpaFF · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is how we do it in my server room. All of our RAID controllers (Dell Poweredge RAID controllers - A derivitive of the Adaptec controllers) let you get two different temperature readings off of the controller. We just poll these vaules from a few of the servers and average.

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  3. Outside the box, inside the room by macx666 · · Score: 3, Funny
    Why not go with what works, and may be cheaper? Go with a standard weather device like
    • Texas Weather Instruments
    • Oregon Scientific
    • Davis Vantage
    • etc.
    Plugs in to a computer, logs just fine, and you can post your results to wunderground :-P
  4. Depends on your budget by John+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Informative

    NetBotz are the best-known and most fully-featured system, but they're kind of pricey.

    A cheaper alternative is APC's solution while providing just the environment info you want.

    If you are also looking into remote power management, Server Technology's Power Tower 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.

    --
    UserAdvocate: The voice of the user
  5. Buy or build your own by FattMattP · · Score: 2, Interesting
    If you want to buy a temp sensor which is recommended by the Nagios people: http://www.sensatronics.com/TempTrax/index.html

    If you want to roll your own: http://quozl.netrek.org/ts/

    I bought the kit for the one on the second link and it works great.

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    Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
  6. Set up your own... by Jess · · Score: 2, Informative

    I currently use digitemp to monitor the temperature in my computer room using Dallas Semiconductor DS18S20 temperature sensors. I had thought that they also had iButtons that also monitored humidity, but I don't see them now.

    1. Re:Set up your own... by superid · · Score: 2, Informative

      I use digitemp too to monitor the temperature of my basement....errrr...server room. It works very well and yes, Dalsemi does have one wire humidity sensors

  7. Telaid IP Tattletale by Finni · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'll have to speak up for our own product here. The IP Tattletale family 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>

  8. Yeah, Right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    we are in the process of starting to Do Things Right(tm)

    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 about stuff like this and this and this.

  9. Omega Engineering by Xenu · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Check this page for a cheap ($59), battery operated data logger that records temperature and relative humidity. Stick them whereever you want to collect information. There is a simple Windows program for downloading measurements and configuring the devices over a serial interface.

    I have one at home and it works great.