Server Room Temp Monitoring and Notifications?

Supp0rtLinux asks: "Like many businesses, my server room is a standalone environment from the rest of my building. It has its own UPS, its own survelliance system, and its own AC system powered by its own generator. These are separate from the global building UPS, survelliance, AC, and generator systems and are designed to operate even when the rest of the building is down. However, in my current server room and in others I work with, I find that the AC systems generally lack a network-based notification system. As such, while my server room AC failed at 2am last night and temperature climbed to over 98 degrees, no one was aware until after 8am this morning when the audible alarms were heard. How do other Slashdot readers handle this?" "I've thought about using some server motherboard with thermal monitoring, but they typically: a) only allow for shutdown at a certain temp, not for warning/email; and b) a well cooled server may not necessarily become excessively hot even if the room heats up. I know some newer AC systems *do* support SMTP notifications, but older ones either do not or are cost-prohibitive add-ons. The very popular Lieberts that are found in the ceilings of many server rooms are a good example of this. Do you know of devices that are network/SMTP capable that can be set with thresholds and alarms and generate emails, pages, or SMS messages when said alarms go off?"

Comments

Roll your own via serial port...

[cr0sh]

If you have a spare serial port on a server not hooked up already to a UPS for monitoring, use it. Go down to Home Depot or Lowes and purchase a cheap Honeywell round thermostat, and hook it up to the serial port so that it connects CD & DTR or CTS & RTS together when the temperature rises to over whatever temperature you select. Mount the thermostat near wherever the main A/C thermostat is, and label it or cage it appropriately so that nobody touches it (or "fix" it so that it can't be easily mucked with). Write a cron job or equivalent to sense when this event occurs, and if so, send an email and/or begin the shutdown procedure.

Yeah - this may be all low-tech and homebrewish, but it is essentially the exact same thing that a UPS does (albeit with temperature sensing and not voltage level). Also, you can't sue a company if it fails, but considering nothing is being currently done, and you have already had a failure - this would be the easiest and cheapest way to go (a few hours worth of time and a few dollars for parts, tops)...