Modern companies are placing an increasing emphasis on the value of collected data. As a result, central data centers, IDCs, and similar facilities have become core locations for management within major corporations. Key metrics for monitoring data centers include reducing CO2 emissions associated with electricity usage and preventing potential issues related to heat or humidity that may impact equipment. Examples of such metrics may encompass facility and system temperatures, relative humidity, power consumption, and overall airflow. Failures in the power and environmental equipment within data centers can have consequences ranging from minor, such as computer crashes, to severe, including data loss. Therefore, a 24/7 environmental monitoring system that can effectively keep track of these factors is of paramount importance.
What is an environmental monitoring system?
An environmental monitoring system refers to a complete facility that uses observation technologies (like sensors) and network technologies (wireless communication and remote management software) to monitor the environmental conditions at specific locations. This system provides real-time monitoring data for parameters like relative humidity, temperature, dew point, vibration, leakage, smoke, light levels, and CO2. It also promptly notifies data centers of adverse environmental conditions and equipment status through text messages, emails, or alarms.
Environmental monitoring system primarily encompass functions like air quality monitoring, soil monitoring, salinity monitoring, pollution monitoring, erosion monitoring, and water quality monitoring.
Types of environmental monitoring system
Environmental monitoring is a broad concept, and there are various types of environmental monitoring system. The specific type depends on what we want to analyze. Based on the main objects of monitoring, we can categorize them into four types.
Air environmental monitoring
It is employed to assess the quality of the atmosphere, both indoors and outdoors. This involves tracking meteorological parameters such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, atmospheric pressure, as well as air quality indicators like particle concentrations and harmful gas levels. Like outdoor meteorological station monitoring system and indoor server room environmental monitoring system. In the following sections, this article will use the server room environmental monitoring system as an example to provide you with a detailed overview of its features and components.
Water environment monitoring
It is used to monitor and evaluate the quality of water environment, including monitoring of water quality parameters (such as water temperature, pH value, dissolved oxygen content, etc.) and water pollutants (such as heavy metals, organic matter, etc.). Example is aquaculture environmental monitoring system and river environmental monitoring system.
Soil environment monitoring
It is used to monitor and evaluate soil environmental quality, including monitoring of nutrients, organic matter content, soil pH and other parameters in the soil, as well as detection of heavy metals and harmful substances in the soil. Example is automatic irrigation systems.
Sound environment monitoring
It is used to monitor and evaluate the noise level in the environment, including monitoring the intensity, frequency and time domain characteristics of the noise, as well as the identification and analysis of noise sources. The noise monitoring system in homes or airports is the most typical sound environmental monitoring system.
What do Server Room Environmental Monitoring System offer?
Data measurement
The environmental monitoring device displays the values measured by the connected probe, such as temperature, humidity, smoke, water flooding, door opening/closing, motion detectors, and other sensors.
Data collection and recording
The monitoring host records the measurement data in real-time and regularly stores it in the internal memory and uploads it to the remote monitoring platform for users to view it in real-time.
Alerts and notifications
When the measured value exceeds a predefined threshold, it will trigger an alarm: LED flashing on the sensor, sound alarm, monitoring host error, email, text message, etc. Environmental monitoring equipment can also activate external alarm systems, such as sound and light alarms.
The composition of the Server Room Environmental Monitoring System
Monitoring terminal: temperature and humidity sensor, smoke sensor, water leak sensor, infrared motion detection sensor, air conditioning control module, power failure sensor, sound and light alarm, etc.
Monitoring host: 1U monitoring host, RS-XZJ-100 monitoring host
Monitoring platform: -K platform, cloud platform, mobile APP
Sensors of Server Room Environmental Monitoring System
Temperature and humidity monitoring
The monitoring of the temperature and humidity of the server room is a very important process. When the temperature of the server room rises above a certain level, a warning is issued to the IT administrator. Ensuring that server performance is not affected by excessively high room temperature is a critical task.
The electronic components in most computer rooms are designed to operate within a specific humidity range. High-humidity environments can cause disk drives to malfunction, leading to data loss and crashes, while low-humidity environments increase the risk of electrostatic discharge (ESD), which can cause immediate catastrophic failure of electronic components.
Therefore, strict control of temperature and humidity helps to ensure the normal and efficient operation of the machine. When choosing a temperature and humidity sensor, under a certain budget, try to choose a temperature and humidity sensor with high accuracy and fast response. The sensor itself has an LCD that can be viewed in real-time. Renke provides you with professional computer room temperature and humidity sensors: 86 temperature and humidity sensor, 485 temperature and humidity sensor, LCD temperature and humidity sensor and many other options.
Mobile monitoring
Many server rooms are left unattended after getting off work or even during the day. Other employees may inadvertently destroy the server room by opening the door. High-priced servers and professional data information are easily coveted by bad guys. To protect equipment and information, installing motion detectors is a simple and cost-effective way to allow IT staff to understand all activities in the server room and get alerts.
An infrared motion sensor is the best choice. It adopts ceiling-mounted installation to effectively monitor a 3.5×6 meter three-dimensional space. It uses infrared 360° detection without dead angles. Once an object is detected, an alarm will be issued immediately. It is not affected by the current ambient temperature and can work stably. At the same time, it also has a forced demolition alarm function.
Smoke monitoring
Additional smoke alarms in the server room will ensure that IT staff are notified as much as possible in the event of a fire. This allows responsible personnel to start implementing disaster recovery procedures as early as possible, minimizing overall downtime. By installing smoke alarms, potential fire hazards can be prevented in advance. Avoid causing huge losses.
Renke smoke alarm adopts RS485 signal output, 360° high sensitivity, and sensitivity, stable signal, and will not cause false alarms. Adopt a city power supply to avoid the trouble of replacing the battery.
Water monitoring
The precision air conditioners, ordinary air conditioners, humidifiers, and water supply pipes installed in the computer room will have water leakage. At the same time, there are various cables under the anti-static floor. Once water leaks, they cannot be found and handled in time, which will cause the equipment room to be short-circuited and burned or even catch fire. Loss of important data is an irreparable loss. Therefore, water leak sensor is very important for environmental monitoring system.
As an important part of the environmental monitoring system of the server room, the waler leak sensor is mainly used to monitor whether there is water leakage in places with water sources such as fire water pipes and domestic water pipes. Once a water leak occurs, it will trigger the water leak sensor to report the danger, and the linkage gateway will send out an audible and visual alarm. At the same time, the detector will send the alarm information to the mobile phone APP and issue an alarm to remind people to take timely measures.
Power failure monitoring
With the rapid development of server room construction and the substantial improvement of electrical technology, the number of electrical equipment in the computer room has continued to increase, and the power load has continued to increase. To prevent this, you need to install a power failure alarm in the computer room.
RS-DD-* adopts our company’s patented technology, can withstand instant 10kv shock, and can automatically identify single-phase AC220V, three-phase three-phase system, three-phase four-wire system AC380V power failure, lack of equal fault status. The three parts of the alarm power supply, induction line, and signal output are completely isolated, safe and reliable, beautiful in appearance, and easy to install.
Camera monitoring
CCTV cameras are a good way to provide security for the server room. Not only do they provide video clips of specific events, such as door opening, motion detection, etc., they also act as a visual deterrent to criminals. Clear and sharp pictures can be sent to IT staff anywhere via email, FTP, MMS, or directly transferred to mobile phones.
The RS-ZF-ETH network video character overlay is a device designed for high-definition network cameras developed by our company for the common standard Modbus-RTU communication mode 485 devices in the market. Users can connect this product to a 485 device according to actual needs. After simply configuring the overlay, the corresponding character information will be displayed on the video screen of the HD network camera.
Host of Environmental Monitoring System
1. RS-XZJ-200-Y-*
This server room environment monitoring host is a multi-functional monitoring host designed by us for computer network computer rooms, communication computer rooms, battery-pack computer rooms, and other scenarios. The equipment is 1U in size and adopts a rack-mounted design, which can be properly installed on an iron or aluminum rack, which is convenient and quick to install. The device has a front display screen, which can set the wheel display alarm, and is equipped with a multi-function remote control, which can operate the settings remotely without opening the cabinet door. Support SMS alarm function, when the set time is reached, the system will automatically send an SMS notification to the user.
Features
1. It can be connected to all of our company’s RS485 sensors through the RS485 interface, and it also has multiple functions such as data storage (up to 520,000), power-off resumable transmission, multiple alarm methods, etc.
2. The all-metal case is dust-proof, anti-static, and has strong anti-interference performance.
3. Chinese display screen, equipped with remote control, parameter configuration can be performed without opening the cabinet.
4. It can automatically identify whether the RS485 interface slave device works.
2.RS-XZJ-100
XZJ-100-Y is a multifunctional monitoring host developed by our company for environmental monitoring places such as computer rooms and warehouses. Through the RS 485 interface, all our RS485 transmitters (temperature and humidity, water Electricity detection, smoke detection, etc.) connect to the environmental monitoring host and upload the data to the cloud platform provided by our company (www.0531yun.cn) or the customer’s own server in real time.
Features
1. Built-in data storage, which can store 520,000 records.
2. The device exceeds the limit, and the screen displays the alarm channel and alarm real-time data in turn.
3. One channel can be used for mains power failure alarm, and one channel can be used to detect battery voltage.
4. It can be connected to an outdoor single-color LED display, supporting the maximum number of dots 1024*256.
5. DC 10~30V wide voltage power supply, large screen Chinese LCD display, simple and friendly interface.
6. The device has a unique 8-digit address, easy to manage and identify, and can be used with a variety of software platforms provided by our company.
Platform of Environmental Monitoring System
For the convenience of users, our company provides a web login platform (environmental monitoring cloud platform), local software monitoring platform (RS-RJ-K), and mobile monitoring platform (cloud control APP). Users can choose the appropriate platform to upload and upload according to the situation. View the data.
Cloud platform
The environmental monitoring cloud platform is an online monitoring platform on the web. You can log in to different terminals through account and password to realize real-time monitoring of the monitoring point location, device type, and real-time data of the environmental monitoring system of the computer room. It can also use the mobile phone, pad, computer, and other information The terminal pushes real-time monitoring information, historical data curve viewing, and alarm information to managers to facilitate timely maintenance by staff and improve the stability and reliability of the computer room.
-K platform
The RS-RJ-K monitoring platform is a local environmental monitoring platform launched by our company, which can be connected to all our company’s RS485 sensors, all types of network sensors, concentrators, and hosts, and can realize data viewing and recording, Storage, voice alarm, SMS alarm, email alarm, and other functions. This software platform supports computers, mobile phones, tablets, and other terminals to view temperature and humidity data through web pages and download Excel spreadsheet data for printing. It is a local environmental monitoring software platform widely used in the monitoring industry.
Cloud Control A P P
In order to facilitate mobile users to monitor data, our company has developed and launched the “Cloud Control Communication” mobile phone APP to facilitate users to monitor in real-time 24 hours a day. You can log in to the cloud platform account or RS-RJ-K platform account to view the status of the device in the account through the account password, and you can control tens of thousands of devices with one click. It supports video viewing, equipment failure/abnormal alarm, offline alarm function, real-time data viewing, historical data curve viewing, and it can also connect to a Bluetooth printer for data printing, which is powerful.
