Data Centre Environmental Monitoring Systems

What is Data Centre Monitoring?

Data centres are typically designed to achieve a certain Tier-rating in terms of their resilience and the maintainability of critical infrastructure systems in such a way as to not impact IT operations. Data centre environmental monitoring is the process of managing the complete infrastructure and to ensure equipment runs at its optimum level.

What is an Environmental Monitoring System?

An environmental monitoring system is a set of devices, sensors, detectors and software designed to monitor critical aspects of a data centre’s environment and provide data for historical analysis and alarm notifications where the data recorded is outside of pre-set parameters.

The building-wide environmental monitoring systems from Server Room Environments can be configured to monitor specific environmental factors using plug-in sensors to provide analogue data for trend analysis, capacity planning and to issue alarms or alerts via email and SMS when a measured parameter is outside of a present tolerance range.

Environmental Sensors

The three most installed sensors in a data centre environmental monitoring system are for temperature, humidity, and water leakage. These three factors can indicate problems with the cooling system installed, whether this is a traditional CRAC system or liquid-based cooling. Water leakage can also occur for other reasons including local pipework ruptures and even local floods. Other plug-in sensors and detectors can monitor for airflow, smoke, power, and door security.

Environmental Monitoring Systems

A data centre environment monitoring system can be configured for digital inputs (DI) whereby the environmental monitoring devices receive a volt-free signal contact (dry-contact) from a third-party system such as an air conditioner if the device goes into an alarm or failure condition. Other examples of dry-contact signals include a UPS system going to battery or finding a fault through its automatic self-test system or a generator fuel monitoring system, alarming when the reserve tank level is hit. Digital Outputs (DO) can be used to provide an alarm signal from the sensor base station under programmable logic or activate another third-party system such as a visual beacon or audible alarm.

Monitoring Systems for Data Centres

Environmental monitoring systems can self-fund when they are used to collect data that can adversely affect energy efficiency in data centers. High or low temperatures and humidity levels can indicate that the cooling system is not optimised for the server workload and utilisation, with energy wasted over cooling or removing too much humidity from the air. Monitoring these environmental factors in data centres, coupled with power can also help to identify energy saving from improvements in rack airflow management.

Environment Monitoring Product Selection and Equipment Specifications

Avtech Room Alert Monitoring Devices

The ‘S’ versions of the Room Alert devices offer enhanced security features over the 12E, 12ER and 32E rack mount environment monitors including like HTTPS, TLS and SNMP v3. Room Alert monitoring devices are supplied with a built-in sensor (12S/12SR – Temperature, 32S – Temperature and Humidity) and a plug in external sensor with options for further plug-in sensors and detectors. For other Room Alert models see our server rack temperature monitoring range.

AKCP sensorProbe and sensorProbeX+ Base Units

The sensorProbe and sensorProbeX+ are base monitoring units with plug-in sensor and detector options.

The basic sensorProbe monitoring device is available in 2, 4 and 8 port versions with either 20 (X20) or 60 (X60) dry contacts. sensorProbe is compatible with most AKCP sensors (excluding thermal maps for server racks and cabinets), power meters, swing handle server rack lock monitoring and control, battery monitoring and fuel level sensors. Alerts can be provided via SNMP and email only. sensorProbe is SNMPv2 and v3 compatible.

sensorProbeX+ provides more advanced features with additional SPX+ modules offering additional features. sensorProbeX+ models are compatible with all AKCP sensors, have expansion capabilities using BEB or EXP options and provide Modbus RS485, IPV6, SNMPv3 communications. Alerts can be provided by SNMP, email and the optional internal modem for communications over VPN or SMS (text alerts). SPX+ models also offer an HTML5 web interface.

The Cabinet Control Unit (CCU) can be connected to the EXP port on a sensorProbeX+ monitoring unit to control access to server rack cabinets using RFID readers and electro-magnetic locks. The Swing Handle Lock can be plugged into a sensor port on a sensorProbeX+ (SPX+) device to control access to a server cabinet.

HW Group Poseidon2 Monitoring Systems

Poseidon2 environment monitoring systems are designed to monitor and control sensors and digital I/O over an IP network using secure Machine-2-Machine (M2M) protocols (HTTPs, IPv6, SNMPv3) and include support for over 50 SNMP and SCADA applications. Poseidon2 devices can be integrated with a wide range of monitoring and control systems within a server room or data centre environment including Internet of Things (IoT) solutions using the MQTT protocol.

Please contact our projects team for a specification review and discussion on how we can install and configure the right environmental monitoring system for your data centre.