We Answer: How Cold Should a Server Room Be?
Filed under: airflow monitoring, humidity monitoring, temperature monitoring
Many people ask, how cold should a server room be? Of course, general recommendations from ASHRAE are anywhere between 10°C (50°F) to 28°C (82°F). However, what most people do not know is that temperature of a data center or server room is not as critical as airflow and humidity monitoring. Read more
Server room environmental & security monitoring systems
Greenhouse Environmental Monitoring: Temperature and Humidity Monitors
Filed under: airflow monitoring, environmental monitoring, humidity monitoring, temperature monitoring
Environmental monitoring is essential for crops greenhouses. A few environmental factors are involved in providing crops and greenhouse plants with appropriate environmental conditions for healthy growth. Read more
AC Control: Temperature and Airflow Monitoring Sensors
Filed under: airflow monitoring, environmental monitoring, temperature monitoring
It’s hard to miss the feel of freezing temperatures and blasting airflow because of poor AC control in buildings– especially larger facilities like hospitals, restaurants, or usually chain businesses. There’s nothing more annoying in the summertime to go from hot and sweaty outside to needing a sweater when walking into freezing cold temperatures when you walk into a grocery store. Read more
Server room environmental & security monitoring systems
Summertime Data Room Monitoring: Part 2
Filed under: airflow monitoring, Data Center, environmental monitoring
In Summertime Data Room Monitoring Part One, I went over the advantages of Temperature, Humidity, and Water leak monitoring. This continuation of the saga will continue to focus on more ways to prevent the summer climate from damaging your data center while staying preventative in your defense. Read more
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Monitor Airflow Around Critical Computer Software System
The Ravica Airflow Sensor is designed to monitor computer systems like data centers or server rooms that generate heat in the course of their operation. A steady flow of air is necessary to dissipate this generated heat. Computer system reliability and safety could be jeopardized if this cooling airflow stops. Airflow Sensors monitor the circulation of air around critical equipment where a constant air-flow is required to maintain a consistent temperature and humidity status and reliable continual performance.
The Airflow Sensor is placed in the air stream path, allowing users to monitor the status of the flowing air. This environmental monitoring device measures the presence or absence of airflow, then the sensorProbe environmental monitor displays the measurement using a graphical display via its web interface. Read more
Server Room Environment Moderated by Mother Nature
Filed under: airflow monitoring, Data Center, environmental monitoring, humidity monitoring, temperature monitoring
Recently, I saw a interesting post on Life Hacker about how to moderate PC temperature by going green. It reminded me of a blog that I wrote a while back that talked about recycling expelled heat from the server room and using it to heat the office. The Life Hacker blog post demonstrated a method of cooling an over-clocked PC with fresh air from outside.
Although I think there are a few engineering flaws in the post, the green IT design and concept are stable.
Using natural resources to cool your server room is clearly the next logical step in making server rooms green. Read more
Virtually Unlimited Expandability for the SecurityProbe
Filed under: environmental monitoring, General, Ravica News, SensorProbes
The majority of Ravica customers are looking to monitor a small number of specific environmental conditions—sometimes that is monitoring the temperature and humidity in the server room or detecting water leaks in a second home, or monitoring airflow in the data center . For these applications, the BitSight2 and BitSight8 sensor probe models are great environmental monitoring solutions at an affordable price. However, there are times when a customer has a need to monitor many, many more conditions and input devices. For these customers, I’d like to cover the expandability features of the newest SecurityProbe model.
In the past, some of the SecurityProbe advantages included; advanced notification options, great video capabilities and the ability to connect up to 8 sensor probes per unit. The newest SecurityProbe retains all of these great features and adds four RJ-45 expansion ports to the front of the box which allows the connection of up to four expansion units. There are two expansion units options available: the E-opto16 and the E-sensor8.
With the E-opto16, you get 16 isolated dry contact inputs. A typical application for this expansion module would be to connect the dry contact to alarm panels and create custom alerts for each of the alarms. For example, one could have a dry contact connected to the fire alarm, another to the security alarm, and another to the AED cabinet. Each dry contact could then be set up to automatically call the respective emergency operator, in these cases the fire department, police, or paramedics. An unlimited number of E-opto16’s can be daisy-chained to accommodate up to 600 different dry contact inputs.
If you are more interested in increasing the number of intelligent environmental and security sensors that can be monitored, there is the E-sensor8 that adds 8 sensor ports. Like the E-opto16, the E-sensor8 can be daisy-chained to allow the monitoring of up to 600 sensors through a single SecurityProbe. The two expansion units are also compatible with each other , giving the user complete control in designing the combination of dry contacts and sensors that works for their unique needs.
If you’d like more information on these new expansion modules, give us a call at 207.324.8173. We’d love to help you design an environmental monitoring system that does just what you need it to do.
~JessicaFollow Me on Twitter
Are you Optimizing Your Environmental Monitoring System?
Filed under: environmental monitoring, Intelligent Sensors
Here on the Ravica Blog, we talk a lot about temperature and humidity monitoring in data centers, but did you know 
that you can use the same Sensor Probes to create a centralized monitoring system that can provide information on almost any environmental condition? The following is a run-down of some of the other Ravica intelligent sensors that are available. All the sensors are plug & play, SNMP-enabled and easily integrated into the environmental monitoring system of your dreams. Read more
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Complete Environment Monitoring
Filed under: airflow monitoring, environmental monitoring, Intelligent Sensors, motion detector, SensorProbes, water leak monitoring
A soup to nuts environmental monitoring solution includes more than just temperature readings, humidity monitoring and smoke detection. If electronic equipment is in the area such as server rooms, data centers or computer rooms, it is often a good idea to monitor for other environmental conditions:
- Monitoring for water leaks
- Voltage monitoring for electrical brownouts or complete electrical loss
- Motion detection and automated photo delivery
- Airflow monitoring
How to Monitor Data Room Temperature
Data room temperature monitoring can involve more than just hanging a thermometer on the wall. Temperature measurements should be taken from at least two locations.
It isn’t as simple as monitoring temperature with a single sensor. There a little issue called airflow monitoring that needs to be in places as well, especially for data centers and server rooms. If you already own a BitSight or SensorProbe, you probably have a spare port.
Add another temperature sensor for across the room or an airflow sensor so that you have a more ambient environmental monitoring solution for very little money. It will be worth monitoring your assets for potential environmental hazards.
- Mike