Water leak detection systems in the server room
Filed under: environmental monitoring, water leak monitoring
With the importance placed on temperature and humidity monitoring and detecting hotspots in the data center, it is easy to forget that the second most common cause of catastrophic failure are water leaks. Whether your server room is located near refrigeration equipment used for building cooling, building facilities like bathrooms and kitchens or air conditioning units, precautions need to be taken.
Prevention
It all starts at the building planning level. Having an initial survey, to know if your building is in or near a flood zone, sounds like a no brainer, but it’s surprising how many people I speak with on a weekly basis that are in the heart of a flood zone with no water monitoring system in place. Once you know the situation your server room is in, it is important to take the necessary precautions by having the proper drainage installed, including a sump pump. This protects you in the event flooding becomes present.
Security monitoring – camera applications
Our customers that are looking to take environmental monitoring to another level often ask about our camera monitoring support. I thought a short article on the applications would be useful to some of our regular readers.
See a Ravica SensorProbe live in the wild!
Filed under: environmental monitoring, humidity monitoring, temperature monitoring
Did you know that you can see how Ravica SensorProbes work, without even leaving your desk? All you have to do is click the SecurityProbe Online Demo link on the front page and you will be able to see temperature and humidity sensors from our own data room.
You can even see how easy it is to view your data room remotely with the integrated Ravica Security Cams.
Map your probes:
You can easily map the location of your probes via the mapping interface. This dynamic interface will not only tell you the status of your environmental monitors, but will also give you clickable links that give you more information.
Data center in hot water
Filed under: environmental monitoring, temperature monitoring, water leak monitoring
So here I was, thinking about what today’s blog would be, and my buddy Mitch gave me today’s title. Although a corny title, it describes an issue that happened with a customer of mine. The good news is that Ravica’s probes helped save the day.
Joe, the Admin for an ISP, had purchased multiple water sensors and temperature sensors for his six data rooms. Around 3:20am on a Sunday he got an alert from his SensorProbe. Apparently, the temp in one of the server rooms was rising. Since he was on call, he decided to get into his truck and see what was going on. On his way to the building, he received another page. The water sensor had triggered. He was now very concerned.
Once he reached the data center, it was obvious to him what had happened. One of the valves of the heating system started to reached its limit. This quickly caused the temp of the pipes to rise, which is what triggered the temperature sensor.
The relief vales reached their breaking point and started to spray water all over the first data room. He was quick to let me know that he shut down the water and saved the other data rooms from being soaked, since they were in line and showed signs of having the same behavior.
That means the investment in the temperature monitoring probes saved them thousands of dollars. If that isn’t the best reason to buy then I don’t know one that is!
- Jimmy D
Sometimes it’s fun to brainstorm about SensorProbes
Yesterday, Jon came over to me and said, “Jim you are going to like this one!” Jon knows that I am a geek at heart and love to find new and exciting ways to integrate technology into the real world. I was intrigued.
A customer called Jon and had an interesting idea. His goal was to detect traffic coming in and out of a hall way with our motion detection probes. The server room was in the middle of the two entrances. This means you could have two points of entry. He wanted to use our motion sensors to feed his soon to be written application.
At this point my mind started to race. I was amazed at what I thought was a simple, yet practical, application of these probes. I was dazed by the logic in the condition statements that would have to be created to eliminate false positives. Yes, in those few minutes, I felt that I was part of that project.
Sadly, this Nirvanic state did not last long. I needed to attend to a few of my other customer’s issues. When the day settled down, I started to think more about this request.
The first question I had was, “Why would you want to do this?” Jon gave a few reasons, but I forgot what they were. So I came up with my own theory. He wanted to see when someone came in and when someone came out of a room. In this case, the two data points would be needed.
The second question would be, “Can we detect this?” Sure, that wouldn’t be an issue. We would be able to detect when a person goes past a motion sensor. We would then wait until that sensor is triggered again, meaning they went back the same way. Or until the other sensor was triggered, meaning they went back via the other hall. 
The third question’s answer is still in progress, “What logic will be used?” We have to have logic that will eliminate false positives, people just walking down the hall and failing to detect an entry.
I suggested adding a dry contact to the door. This would add a third data point and make detection a lot easier. When the door opens or closes, we would know when some one has passed through it’s threshold.
I don’t know what the outcome will be for this project, but I did see the purchase order come in. I will update the blog when we get the final results!
- JimmyD
Minimize network downtime by monitoring temperature in the data room
Filed under: Data Center, environmental monitoring, humidity monitoring, temperature monitoring
Infrastructure stability is constantly at the forefront of network planning and management. A good data center needs to be well organized and structured for clean operations, but it also needs to be appropriately optimized to guard against environmental disasters. Now, when I say disasters, I don’t necessarily mean typhoons and earthquakes. Even something as simple as an air conditioner losing power and the temperature rising to dangerous levels could be a disaster.
While a building management system can help optimize air flow and lower temperatures, they are not fail proof. That’s where Ravica comes in. Ravica provides some of the largest companies, with the most complex data centers, with solutions that ensure the integrity of environmental conditions within the data room. Not only can our intelligent temperature and humidity sensors tell you when conditions have become hazardous to your equipment, but our SensorProbes can take action as well.
Remote weather stations use Ravica SensorProbes
Filed under: environmental monitoring, humidity monitoring, temperature monitoring
I love finding new ways people are using our probes! I just finished a call with a university up here in the north land, who wanted to use our probes in their remote data station. The remote data station is part of a funded study to determine the changing weather conditions in the area.
The problem is that the grant they received would fund the weather monitoring equipment, but not the equipment that would run the unmanned station. The good news is that their technology budget would cover the BitSight8 and the required sensors.
They needed to be able to monitor temperature, humidity, airflow and security. The customer explained to me that since this was an unmanned station, knowing if anyone has opened the server room door was extremely important.
We spent some time talking about the various environmental conditions and how they can affect the servers. He was surprised how the environmental conditions would effect the station’s performance.
The environmental conditions of the area can change throughout the year. The winters can drop below zero, while the temperature during the summer months is in the 90’s with high humidity. Monitoring for humidity is vital; condensation on a circuit board can kill a machine. Having a monitor in place is absolutely vital.
We then went over the alerting and reporting ability of the probe and how this unmanned station’s IT center would be fully monitored. I also spent some time explaining the SecurityProbe and how it would alert them when someone opened the door. I am looking forward to the install date. I hope that it is in the summer. I hate snow!
- JimmyD