From: Mike Subject: Networked sensors? Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 14:52:51 +0000 (UTC) I've been given the task of researching and setting up networked sensors for our swerver rooms. (Well, one for ours and one for a research group. Same diff.) We're mostly interested in monitoring temperature, since our Plant Operations people will do this but will only telephone one person to alarm - not very useful for us, particularly since we're not required to work off-hours (and of course, stuff always goes off at 0300h). Other sensors may or may not be useful. We're not particularly interested in security, since that's theoretically already handled by police services. I've never had to do something like this before. A cow-orker provided me with some websites and printouts of various sensing appliances. Most of them seem to have a fairly standard feature set: email, SNMP traps, etc. Plug them in to the network, do some configuring, and they do the rest. I'm left wondering if it's really this easy. Any hints, tips, or tricks I'm missing? We (I) have a nagios server that's mostly reliable. I found the ESensors EM01 linked to from the Nagios website, and I also found Jacarta (SP2, SP8, interSeptor), NetBotz (WallBotz 500), NTI, and Sensatronics. Any recommendations? If you do reply, please let me know if you mind being quoted in a semi-public place (internal mailing list or perhaps "internal" web page), or if you'd prefer your contributions to remain anonymous - I'm collecting this information for management, who will theoretically decide which to purchase and then tell me to figure out how to make them work. (Practically speaking, they'll likely go with whatever I tell them I think is best.) Thanks, Mike Subject: Re: Networked sensors? Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 02:57:21 +0000 (UTC) In article , Mike wrote: >Any hints, tips, or tricks I'm missing? We (I) have a nagios server that's >mostly reliable. I found the ESensors EM01 linked to from the Nagios >website, and I also found Jacarta (SP2, SP8, interSeptor), NetBotz (WallBotz >500), NTI, and Sensatronics. Any recommendations? We use Rama Mediators. I'm not endorsing them, but I'm not complaining about them. I don't have to deal with environmental monitoring, but I do sometimes use the web interface on the Mediators to check things out. They work fine and never, ever seem to require any breakfix. We're currently running a machineroom temperature survey with one sensor every couple of metres, but the setup appears to be a mess of custom goo. Subject: Re: Networked sensors? Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 08:51:50 +0000 (UTC) Mike wrote: >I've been given the task of researching and setting up networked sensors for >our swerver rooms. (Well, one for ours and one for a research group. Same >diff.) > >We're mostly interested in monitoring temperature, ... Back at my old place of ork we did that by SNMP-querying the sensors of the cisco routers providing the connectivity to the rooms. Subject: Re: Networked sensors? Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 07:46:50 +0000 (UTC) > Mike wrote: >>I've been given the task of researching and setting up networked sensors for >>our swerver rooms. (Well, one for ours and one for a research group. Same >>diff.) >> >>We're mostly interested in monitoring temperature, ... > > Back at my old place of ork we did that by SNMP-querying the sensors > of the cisco routers providing the connectivity to the rooms. I'm doing the same with a small program called thermometro that does this for SCSI disks, or a script around Solaris' printdiag. Networking currently realized by writing to a temporary file in my public_html, which a cron job reads and transmogrifies using rrdtool. Subject: Re: Networked sensors? Date: 05 Apr 2005 13:57:28 +0100 (BST) Mike wrote: >Any hints, tips, or tricks I'm missing? We (I) have a nagios server that's >mostly reliable. I found the ESensors EM01 linked to from the Nagios >website, and I also found Jacarta (SP2, SP8, interSeptor), NetBotz (WallBotz >500), NTI, and Sensatronics. Any recommendations? At work (xxxxxxxxxxx) we have eight Wallbotz 500 units dotted around various machine rooms and comms rooms. Some have external sensor pods and/or camera pods. We do neat tricks like record images for 10 seconds after motion is detected or the door is opened. They also monitor and record dry contacts (e.g. UPS status or door open/closed), air flow, and temperature. You can hang multiple sensors off each unit; we have 5 temperature sensors on some of ours, monitoring different racks. They have an OK web interface and can be configured using a standalone Java app. Alerting is by email or (I think) HTTP GET. We're about to move into a new building and will be kitting that out with Netbotz units, as far as I know. >If you do reply, please let me know if you mind being quoted in a >semi-public place (internal mailing list or perhaps "internal" web page), or Don't mind. Dave Subject: Re: Networked sensors? Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 08:20:00 +0000 (UTC) On 2005-04-04, Mike wrote: > We're mostly interested in monitoring temperature, since our Plant > Operations people will do this but will only telephone one person to > alarm - not very useful for us, particularly since we're not required > to work off-hours (and of course, stuff always goes off at 0300h). > Other sensors may or may not be useful. We're not particularly > interested in security, since that's theoretically already handled by > police services. > > I've never had to do something like this before. A cow-orker provided > me with some websites and printouts of various sensing appliances. > > Most of them seem to have a fairly standard feature set: email, SNMP > traps, etc. Plug them in to the network, do some configuring, and > they do the rest. I'm left wondering if it's really this easy. Yes, it's usually just that easy. Configure via a web interface, get data via web, snmp or email. > Any hints, tips, or tricks I'm missing? We (I) have a nagios server > that's mostly reliable. I found the ESensors EM01 linked to from the > Nagios website, and I also found Jacarta (SP2, SP8, interSeptor), > NetBotz (WallBotz 500), NTI, and Sensatronics. Any recommendations? I have good experience with AKCP stuff. http://www.akcpinc.com/ Small, plasticky, works, and possibly cheap as well. :P