Weatherproofing The Data Center

Two Different Monitoring Products
As Pankonin noted, there's a wide spectrum of products and solutions that can provide monitoring capabilities for the data center, and many of them do keep a finger on the pulse of climate conditions. Two such products come from significantly different ends of that spectrum: APC's NetBotz 420, which can sit in a data center rack along with servers, storage and cables; and the EL-USB-2 Rh-Temp Data Logger by Lascar Electronics, which sells for about a hundred bucks with logging and alert software. The former appears to be a channel-ready, data-center-optimized solution with realtime, Web-based remote management capability. The latter not so much, although it does function as advertised and can serve as an on-the-go tool that a solution provider can toss into a briefcase for use when needed.

The NetBotz 420: List-priced at $1,975 for the model that comes with an integrated videocamera, the Test Center installed the NetBotz 420 in its data center to get an idea of its ease of deployment, ease of use, effectiveness, customizability and ROI case. Installation was fairly straightforward (once we got past a minor typo in the documentation that told us, when putting the device on the network, to enter a product name that included the last six digits of the serial number when, in fact, we had to include the last six digits of the MAC address. That set us back five or 10 minutes.). Once installed, the device feeds realtime data streams into a data-logging application that watches heat, humidity, fluid accumulation, noise, airflow and motion. It does provide additional ports for more sensors that can be placed away from the data center. NetBotz 420 provides software that allows for a PC-based application dashboard for monitoring and setting alert thresholds and e-mail notification preferences, or it's possible to simply click on the IP address for the device and access the management console via Web browser.

Remote management also could be developed either by telnet or through APC's InfrastruXure Center—which offers Web-based access to a data server that integrates with NetBotz for a remote view of the realtime data.

Luckily for the Test Center, we've got a boring data center. According to the data charts provided by the NetBotz, there was no motion (as measured by the camera) or sound between the time we left our lab for the night and when we arrived the next morning. Temperature in the data center began to increase at about 4 a.m., but that's when the building's heat kicks in before the workday. Airflow in the rack enclosure spiked for about 90 seconds one night, around 1 a.m., when everything else was running consistently, so perhaps it was a case of a mouse with a coughing fit. We fiddled with the e-mail alert thresholds and found that they were easily altered by the administrator. The integrated security camera is a natural feature for the device, and allows an administrator to keep tabs on who gets near the racks, and when.

The EL-USB-2: For small or stubborn customers not willing to make an investment in managed services or data center monitoring, the EL-USB-2 device could come in handy. A few notes: While it's handy, easy to carry around and install on any 32-bit Windows-based server or PC, it's pretty rudimentary and monitors only relative humidity and temperature. It does provide data-logging software and allows you to customize the data-capture intervals (from five seconds to every hour) and saves it into text and graphics files on the PC itself. This model and software don't provide e-mail notification. Our recommendation: Consider picking up one or two of these devices to throw in your briefcase for on-the-fly monitoring scenarios.

The bottom line: For a fraction of the cost of recovering lost data, suffering a server outage or running energy-eating and inefficient hardware, data centers and wiring closets can now have their own, dedicated IT monitoring solution with little hassle. And if customers still aren't convinced, they may be ready to talk about it after a major incident.