Ravica Blog » Airflow http://www.ravica.com/blog Environmental monitoring solutions that just work Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:26:32 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Monitor Airflow Around Critical Equipment http://www.ravica.com/blog/sensorprobes/monitor-airflow-around-critical-equipment/ http://www.ravica.com/blog/sensorprobes/monitor-airflow-around-critical-equipment/#comments Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:32:57 +0000 Angela http://www.ravica.com/blog/?p=1930 The Ravica Airflow Sensor is designed for systems that generate heat in the course of their operation and a steady flow of air is necessary to dissipate this generated heat.  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.

Airflow SensorThe Airflow Sensor is placed in the air stream path, allowing users to monitor the status of the flowing air.  This device measures the presence or absence of air flow, then the sensorProbe environmental monitor displays the measurement using a graphical display via its web interface.

In addition to an on/off indicator, it also graphs the analog values over a period of time.

An SNMP interface is also provided for alarm/normal status and to get the current analog value.  When an alarm condition is activated, the description and location of the fault can be sent via email.

Check out some features of the Airflow Sensor:

  • On/off alarm signal of airflow
  • Airflow data graphically displayed of over time
  • Accurate, cost effective flow sensing
  • Operates from a single +5 V DC Power Supply which powered by the sensorProbe
  • 2 LEDs indicate the status of Airflow and that the sensor is securely plugged into the sensorProbe
  • Electronics mounted in a small plastic case
  • Sensor type – open/closed contact switch
  • sensorProbe auto detects the presence of the airflow sensor
  • Up to 2 airflow sensors per sensorProbe2, 8 per sensorProbe8 and securityProbe
  • Full autosense including disconnect alarm
  • Data graphically displayed via a web page

For more information about Ravica equipment to monitor your data center, home, or business, call Ravica at 207-324-8173.

~Angela
Follow us on Twitter!
Find us on Facebook!

]]> http://www.ravica.com/blog/sensorprobes/monitor-airflow-around-critical-equipment/feed/ 0 Camera’s lend environmental reassurance http://www.ravica.com/blog/environmental-monitoring/cameras-lend-environmental-reassurance/ http://www.ravica.com/blog/environmental-monitoring/cameras-lend-environmental-reassurance/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:32:17 +0000 Mike Allen http://www.ravica.com/blog/?p=550 When it comes to monitoring the data center environmental conditions, we receive questions which pretty much cover the gamut. From staples, such as monitoring temperature or humidity, to measuring more difficult ambient conditions, such as airflow.

We also receive calls about security. This is something we can cover in a few different ways:

  1. Using a contact security sensor on all doors or windows.
  2. Motion detectors have been the topic of a few blogs.
  3. We can install strobe lights that can indicate security breaches.
  4. We can also install security cameras, which take pictures based on movement.

Pictures, like the ones above, can be emailed and/or archived, depending on the business needs. Sensitivity can also be adjusted.

Our equipment isn’t limited to specialized temperature and humidity monitoring. Please keep us in mind for security as well.

- Mike

]]> http://www.ravica.com/blog/environmental-monitoring/cameras-lend-environmental-reassurance/feed/ 0 Airflow in data centers requires careful monitoring http://www.ravica.com/blog/environmental-monitoring/airflow-in-data-centers-requires-careful-monitoring/ http://www.ravica.com/blog/environmental-monitoring/airflow-in-data-centers-requires-careful-monitoring/#comments Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:29:57 +0000 Mike Allen http://www.ravica.com/blog/?p=357 Monitoring the temperature of a room from a single location sometimes does not provide a good overall representation of the ambient environmental conditions. I asked around and found out about Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). CFD can provide 3-D analysis of how air is moving through a data center and identify potential warm areas where equipment is likely suffering from too little airflow.

I think it would be cool if our solution could provide a diagram as shown below:

computational fluid dynamics (CFD)

I found the above image from a company called inres.com. They make a product called TileFlow. TileFlow is a powerful three-dimensional software tool for simulating cooling performance of data centers. It uses the state-of-the-art computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques, and is applicable to both raised-floor and non-raised-floor data centers.

If you don’t have unlimited resources, you could use our gear to create a map that looks like this:

Airflow Room

The above is web based and the LEDs representing temperature, humidity and airflow change color based on thresholds. Notifications can be sent, and visual trends are provided, as well. It is a low cost solution, starting at $325.00 for temperature and humidity monitoring, and an airflow sensor can be added for another $125.00. That is tough to beat.

Contact us for a live demonstration of this capability.

- Mike

]]> http://www.ravica.com/blog/environmental-monitoring/airflow-in-data-centers-requires-careful-monitoring/feed/ 2 My Ravica sensorProbe woke me up! Time for some coffee. http://www.ravica.com/blog/sensorprobes/my-ravica-sensorprobe-woke-me-up-time-for-some-coffee/ http://www.ravica.com/blog/sensorprobes/my-ravica-sensorprobe-woke-me-up-time-for-some-coffee/#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:48:43 +0000 JimmyD http://www.ravica.com/blog/?p=38 What a morning here at our Network operations center. My cell phone paged me at 2:00 am letting me know that server room 4 was overheating. After I grumbled a few choice words, I got out of bed to see what the issue might be. I also received another page from the air flow probe .

I logged into Denika and then clicked on the SvrRoom4 report group. I pat myself on the back for being super smart. When we set up this server room I made sure to setup reports for the various Ravica probes and complimented them with other related SNMP reports. I have quite a few, port utilization, memory, CPU utilization and most importantly System Temperature.

So I looked at the reports. I drilled down in the historical graph and could see that the air flow sensor saw a steady decline a little after 1:30 am. I then went over to the temp sensor and started to see the temp climb around 1:45 am. The temperature sensor reached the threshold at 1:55 am.

At this point I was a bit puzzled. We had placed the air flow sensor by the cooling unit but the AC voltage detector was reporting fine. That means the environmental fan was running.

I’m lucky, I was the designer of this server room and was adamant about having a security light that I could turn off or on remotely. So I sent the command to turn on the light and then logged into the webcam. The good news is that I could see what happened. We had stacked some cardboard boxes on that wall and one had fallen in front of the vent. That means that fan was running but air couldn’t get out.

The good news is that I was able to find and remedy the problem quickly. The bad news is that I had to get dressed and drive over to the office and move the boxes. I did make sure to stack all the boxes on top of the desk of the person who was supposed to get rid of them in the first place!

____________________________________
Jim Dougherty aka “Jimmy D”
Lead PreSales Support Engineer and
Netflow Evangelist for Plixer International!

Follow me on Twitter
http://twitter.com/jimmydnet

____________________________________

]]> http://www.ravica.com/blog/sensorprobes/my-ravica-sensorprobe-woke-me-up-time-for-some-coffee/feed/ 0