Five Reasons to Monitor Server Room Temperatures

Posted Jul 29, 2011

With shrinking budgets and unwavering calls for reliability, server room temperature monitoring has become increasingly critical for IT departments of all sizes. Here are five reasons to implement server room temperature monitoring with Climate Guard:

1) Protect mission-critical equipment from failure and data loss.
Heat can cause decreased performance, intermittent failures, total equipment failure and data loss. If a server room air conditioner fails, the room temperature can rise rapidly. Often times there may be no sign of a problem before it is too late. IT personnel need to know immediately if the temperature begins to rise. Climate Guard monitors temperatures in the server room and uses email, SMS and SNMP to notify appropriate personnel of any environmental problems. IT staff can then quickly take action to prevent downtime and data loss.

2) Environmental threats are heightened after hours.
When an environmental problem occurs after hours, it can easily go undetected until the next business day. During that period, heat and other conditions have more than enough time to wreak havoc on mission-critical systems. IT staff may be on call and ready to handle a problem, but require notification that a situation is unfolding. Using Climate Guard, on call staff receive alerts if environmental conditions pose a threat after hours. Climate Guard’s notifications allow for different schedules, ensuring that only the necessary people receive alerts in the middle of the night.

3) Rack temperatures matter more than room temperatures.
While measuring ambient temperature in the server room is important, the real concern is the temperature inside the racks. There are many variables that affect how rack temperature differs from room temperature. The only way to know for sure that equipment is operating in a safe environment is to monitor the temperature inside the rack itself. Climate Guard allows for multiple temperature probes, which can be positioned throughout the room as well as inside each rack. By measuring the temperature at the locations where it matters most, Climate Guard gives you a more accurate picture of your equipment environment.

4) Make sure your air distribution doesn't create hot spots.
Temperature can vary across each rack in a server room. The amount and type of equipment in each rack, as well as differences in cool air distribution, can cause surprising variation in temperature from one rack to another. Knowing that all equipment is running safely requires monitoring more than just one rack. Climate Guard’s daisy-chainable sensors easily allow for temperature measurement in multiple racks – even multiple measurements per rack. If even a single rack begins to heat up, Climate Guard will alert personnel to the problem, pointing to the specific rack that needs work.

5) Lower your cooling expenses without lowering your reliability.
Server room cooling expenses can account for a significant portion of an IT department’s operating expenses. Between tightening budgets and Green IT initiatives, excessive cooling is off the table. However, the risk of equipment failure with high temperatures remains unchanged. In order to cool more efficiently and cost effectively, server rooms must run warmer than ever before. Having less temperature headroom necessitates more temperature monitoring. Knowing that Climate Guard will alert IT to any temperature problems anywhere in the server room, IT departments can safely reduce cooling costs without risking downtime.Expandable to up to 64 sensors and fully SNMP-enabled, Climate Guard is a solid fit for server rooms and data centers of all sizes. See Climate Guard in action today by trying our live demo. (Username: demo, Password: demo)