Ethernet Thermometer

A

axon1988

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Hi guys,

Been a while since I posted in this section.

My lovely boss just phoned me today from Spain (he's on holiday) after I struggled this morning with a server room that was causing Chernobyl 2.0
He asked me if I could organize some kind of thermometer that'll email / sms us when the temperatures reach a certain degree.

Does anyone here know of a local product? Sure there are loads of products overseas but I'm not seeing anything locally. If anyone wants to do a sales pitch go ahead. My office is opposite the server room and I really don't enjoy the heat wave coming from it on a day when it's 32 degrees outside.

Some of the computers inside are starting to sing at me... (fan bearings are getting tired)
 
We use netbotz from APC. It's essentially a rack mount unit that takes various sensors, and you manage them from a single location. It also support SNMP. We are currently running temperature and humidity.

If you are interested, PM me and I can put you in contact with the company that supplied us.
 
We're using Zabbix to monitor all our servers, including our APC units - all via SNMP.
You can setup triggers for temperature sensors to send you an E-mail/SMS. Unfortunately you'll need a SMS gateway to be able to send an SMS.

We haven't setup SNMP to report the server temperatures yet, but you should be able to do it - have a look here: http://forums.cacti.net/about8323.html
 
I should probably clarify this so Spiderz can understand a bit better. We have two massive dedicated aircons in the server room. The problem is we're on a wonderful Eskom power grid that sometimes fails. The servers would restart or keep going without problem thanks to the generator outside, but the aircons cut out and don't start up again. :p

Thanks guys for the replies. I've contacted some of these people. I just want to get an idea of how much it's going to cost for now. I'll tell my boss rather then going to Spain again he could buy this and then go somewhere local without any worries about melting servers.

I checked the temperature this morning when I went into the room and it was 68 degrees in that room. I felt like I was going to die! But apparently I didn't die.
 
axon1988 said:
I checked the temperature this morning when I went into the room and it was 68 degrees in that room. I felt like I was going to die! But apparently I didn't die.
Click to expand...

Posting from beyond the grave would be a pretty neat trick and keeping up with the times though ;) :p
 
The_Librarian said:
68 degrees?

Ouch... best do a regular backup in case a HDD decides to give the ghost :(
Click to expand...

According to a Google study high temps have very little influence on HDD failure. But I would always try and keep things cool. Don't companies build decent servers rooms any more?
 
Pada said:
Not everyone has a budget that would allow temperature monitoring, air-conditioning and fire extinguishing systems with CO2 gas... :(
Click to expand...

Wait until they suffer a catastrophic failure that cripples their business, then the cost of the above will pale in comparison :D

You can achieve something decent on a low budget if you really want to.
 
ponder said:
According to a Google study high temps have very little influence on HDD failure. But I would always try and keep things cool. Don't companies build decent servers rooms any more?
Click to expand...
Only holds true up to a certain point. I suspect that 68 ambient is beyond that point.
 
Well the servers are all fine! I am honestly surprised that my boss isn't prepared to spend more on a safety backup system or monitoring system. Like we have a backup pc that's doing backups daily. And we do have two massive dedicated airconsthat keep that room at a cool 12 degrees. We have a really nice diesel generator in case power cuts and there's enough UPS's in that server room to keep it running on battery power for 4 hours. (Which we've worked out) One of the servers in theree is valued at over R1 000 000 and he still doesn't want a monitoring system. It's his own problem then. I just do my job and try work with what I have. It's not like the company doesn't have the cashflow.
 
I recon the monitoring system would be relatively cheap. Maybe get some prices just for interest sake. You only need one for the whole room as you want to monitor the ambient temp right?
 
Yes that's exactly what I want. So far I've found a system that does more then just monitor it for about R12 500 ex vat. And one that only monitors temp for R760 ex vat.
 
I'm sorry, Exkom is not to blame. Hilton is known for it's power failures. I guess this makes our municipality... guilty.
 
Why not put the aircons on a decent UPS system as well?
The UPS would just need enough juice until the gen comes online.
 
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