DCIM Data Center Infrastructure Monitoring

Transcription

1 DCIM Data Center Infrastructure Monitoring ServersCheck offers a flexible, modular and affordable DCIM solution. It is based on our range of IP & SNMP hardware environmental sensors and management software. Our solution allows you to monitor your data center or server room infrastructure, network, servers as well as applications to ensure availability and to optimize operating costs. The modular and cost effective design makes the ServersCheck s DCIM solution affordable for any type of organization: enterprise or SME. How modular? Serverscheck s sensors do not rely on an expensive central control unit. Instead it is based on small independent gateways which connect to your network. Those gateways will monitor & alert on sensor readings and can be integrated with the DCIM software over SNMP. You simply add new units as your infrastructure monitoring need grows. How affordable? Based on calculations by Gartner the all-in cost of a ServersCheck environmental rack monitoring solution (sensors & DCIM software) costs only 0.05% or less of the annual cost of a Wintel rack. Infrastructure monitoring is not an option, it is a must for any organization wanting to ensure their business continuity. Infrastructure monitoring also enables companies to substantially save on increasing energy costs by optimizing cooling within the ASHRAE standards. With ServersCheck s DCIM software users can not only monitor their infrastructure but also their network, systems and even applications. The software comes with a unique set of alerting and visualization solutions enabling customers to adopt an eye off the glass strategy whereby NOC resources can be reallocated from watching screens 24x7 to other more productive tasks. SERVERSCHECK

2 1 DCIM The award winning monitoring software from ServersCheck allows users to monitor server rooms or data centers, from the infrastructure layer up to the application layer. For infrastructure monitoring (DCIM) the software monitors, reports and alerts on sensor values. In the software, users define the sensors that are to be monitored and their threshold limits. Also the location of the sensors in the server room or data center is defined in the software. When a sensor exceeds the defined limits an alert will be triggered. It can send out the alert via and also via SMS. By using a GSM modem directly attached to the host running the software, the software can send out alerts even when the mail server or parts of the IP network are down. Screenshot of the The software logs all sensor readings. It can also generate trend analysis reports. Next to that it generates automatically heat maps enabling users to visually detect under- or over-cooling, humidity or airflow related issues. Next to monitoring the infrastructure, the software can also monitor the performance and availability of all the following data center and server room components: network (NPM), systems, servers (SPM) and applications (APM). 2 Rack Level Monitoring Temperature heat map of a server room An often made mistake is to only monitor ambient conditions in a room and not inside the racks. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) recommends no less than 6 temperature sensors per rack, in order to safeguard the equipment (top, middle, bottom at front & back of a rack). When a heat issue arises, air conditioning units will initially try to compensate the problem. This means that with only ambient temperature monitoring, the issue will only be detected when the air conditioning units are no longer capable of compensating the heat problem. It may be too late then. We recommend monitoring temperature in at least 3 locations inside a rack: at the bottom front of the rack to verify the temperature of the cold air arriving to the rack (called intake temperature); at the top front of the rack to verify that sufficient cooling gets to the top of the rack; and finally one at the top back of the rack which is typically the hottest point of the rack. Intake temperature should be between C / F. The difference between outtake temperature and intake temperature shouldn t exceed 20 C / 35 F. What is the impact of temperature on your systems? High end systems have auto shutdown capabilities, to safeguard themselves against failures when temperature is too high. However, before this happens systems will experience computation errors at a CPU level resulting in application errors. On top of that system cooling (fans) will be stressed, which reduces equipment life time expectancy (and as such their availability and your business continuity). Gartner studies show that the average annual total cost of a Wintel rack is around $70,000 USD. The ServersCheck SensorGateway has a built-in temperature sensor and can host up to 2 additional probes, such as additional temperature probes. With one unit (gateway with 2 external temperature probes) you can monitor an entire rack as per ASHRAE standards, at a cost of less than 0.05% of the annual cost of a Wintel rack.

3 3 Ambient room monitoring Ambient room monitoring is the environmental monitoring of the room for humidity and temperature levels. Such sensors are typically deployed in: Potential hot zones inside the server room or data center Near air conditioning units to detect failure of HVAC systems. When multiple air conditioning systems are available in a room, then a failure of one system will initially be compensated by the others before it may lead to a total cooling failure due to overload. As a result temperature, humidity and airflow sensors are recommended near each unit to get an early warning detection. Humidity in server rooms should at any time be between 40% and 60% rh. If the humidity level is too low, then static electricity will build up inside your systems. This increases the danger for static discharge resulting in permanent system damage. If the air is too humid, then corrosion will start slowly damaging your equipment resulting in permanent failures. Digital Temperature Sensor Probe If you use cold corridors inside your data center, ambient temperature outside the corridor may be at higher levels. Temperatures of 37 C / 99 F are not uncommon in such setups. This allows to significantly reduce the energy cost. However this also means that temperature monitoring is of utmost importance as a failing air conditioning unit will have a way faster impact on the systems lifetime and availability (fans stress, CPU overheating, ) and running a room at higher temperatures may also affect non rack mounted equipment. When using hot corridors it is important to monitor temperature across the room to ensure that sufficient cold air gets to each rack. In this case however, one can also rely on rack based temperature sensors in addition of temperature and humidity sensors close to each HVAC unit Under Raised Floor Monitoring Raised floors form the invisible part of a data center. Walking through a server room or data center doesn t show you what s happening under the tiles. Therefore, monitoring the environmental conditions under a raised floor is a must and not an option. This will safeguard your equipment and business operations. Flooding is a real threat to data centers. As water seeks the lowest point, it is often found under the raised floor. The main sources of water in a server room or data center are: leaking air conditioning systems: a water sensor should be placed under each AC unit water leaks in floors or roof above the data center & server room: water detection cable should be put around the perimeter of the room at around 50cm/3ft from the outer walls leaks of water pipes running through server rooms: water detection cable can be placed along pipes at their lowest point or under the raised floors Two type of sensors for water leakage can be commonly found: spot or water snake cable. Spot sensors will trigger an alert when water touches the sensor. Water rope or water snake cable sensors use a conductive cable whereby contact at any point on the cable will trigger an alert. The latter type is recommended over the first one due to its higher range and higher accuracy. By monitoring air speed or air flow users can monitor if sufficient cool air is sent to all the area s of the room. It is recommended to have a minimum air speed before rack intake of 2m/s. ServersCheck markets digital sensors which will accurately report measured air speed in meters per second. Temperature is the last item that should be monitored under the raised floor. This allows for early detection of cooling issues affecting rack intake temperatures. Digital Airflow Sensor Probe

4 DCIM Solution Overview Application Location Setting SKU S Sensor Package Rack Level Monitoring Intake temperature monitoring Outtake temperature monitoring Front - Bottom of rack for room or floor cooling, top of rack for top cooling Back - Top of rack (hot air climbs) C / F & less than 20 C / 35 F difference from inlet temperature (typically <40 C / 105 F) PoE & SNMP SensorGateway with Built-in Temperature Probe and one External Temperature Sensor Probe Above configuration with one additional external Temperature Sensor Probe Ambient monitoring Ambient humidity and temperature monitoring small server rooms: center of the room data centers: potential hot zones - furthest away from airco units humidity: 40-60% rh & Temperature & Humidity Sensor Probe Airconditioning Monitoring Early detection of failing air conditioning units next to airco units depends on room setup (cold/hot aisles ) & Temperature & Humidity Sensor Probe Water Leaks / Flooding Detecting water leaks coming from outside of room Around outside walls of server room / data center and under raised floor best is to keep a 30-50cm / 10-20" from outer wall & Flooding Sensor with 6m/20ft water sensitive cable Detecting water leaks from air conditioning units Under each air conditioning unit & Flooding Sensor with 6m/20ft water sensitive cable Airflow Monitoring Monitor air velocity under raised floors to ensure sufficient cold air is distributed in the room under raised floor air speed should be around 2m/s & Airflow Sensor Probe Security Sensors Monitoring Monitoring analog dry contact sensors such as motion, smoke, contact sensors either alert on open or on close state & PoE SNMP SensorGateway with IO Dry Contact Sensor Probe DCIM (also for NMP, SPM & APM monitoring monitor infrastructure, network', systems', servers' & applications' performance and availability anywhere - requires direct IP connection to sensors and other equipment being monitored requires a Windows 2012, 2008, 2003 server or Windows 8,7, XP for monitoring up to 250 items for monitoring up to 250 items Monitoring Appliance with Business 250 edition Business 250 Edition requires a Windows 2012, 2008, 2003 server for monitoring more than 250 items Premium Edition Suggestions in above table and document were designed to provide the reader with an idea of how a server room or data center could be environmentally monitored. It is not an exhaustive list of suggestions and actual requirements will probably be different based on the specific layout of the server room and its infrastructure.

5 SensorGateway - environmental sensors base unit 5 supports up to 2 6 built-in web server & SNMP external sensor probes (temperature, humidity, airflow, power failure, flooding, dry contact) agent for administration 7 built-in alerting via & SMS 4 OLED display showing actual sensor readings 3 industrial grade steel casing & 0U rack mountable 2 built-in temperature 1 RJ45 network sensor probe connection & Power Over Ethernet (PoE) ready Additional Information We kindly invite you to visit our website at where you can find detailed technical information about our sensors and software, online demo s, download evaluation versions of the software, user manuals, screen shots, 360 virtual tours and much more. We also welcome you to contact our sales team at sales@serverscheck.com with any question you may have. It will be our pleasure to assist you. The DCIM solution can be ordered through our online store ( ) or through one of our preferred partners ( ) SERVERSCHECK