Daxten Ltd

To control and analyse information relating to the operation of a data centre is a must for data centre facility managers, who want to achieve balanced loads, exploit potential energy savings and create the perfect environment for IT equipment. However, in existing data centres the ability to gather this critical information is very often missing. Retrofitting is usually time-consuming, requiring lots of installation, cabling and configuration work. To make the situation worse, quite often different proprietary solutions are used for the monitoring of power, environmental conditions and leak detection. In addition, often the control of all monitoring units cannot be handled centrally by one joint management tool. Therefore, for all those who would like to avoid high labour costs and the difficulties and frustration in monitoring implementation, it is advisable to take a closer look at a comprehensive monitoring solution called Packet Power. It is based on wire-free radio technology and therefore requires no cabling or configuration work. The solution, which is availabe from Daxten, brings all the mentioned monitoring functions together on one single platform.

Protection against a flood in the data centre

The Packet Power wire-free radio monitoring solution includes a sensing module for the detection of water leaks. As of now, as well as being able to provide power values and environmental data such as temperature, relative humidity and differential pressure, Packet Power can reliably monitor areas in the data centre that are susceptible to leaks. As soon as the sensing cable comes into contact with water, an acoustic alarm is triggered and warnings are automatically sent by the dedicated EMX management tool, third party BMS or DCIM application so that the Data Centre personnel can take immediate action This prevents a drop of water becoming a tidal wave of problems in the data centre. 

The leak detection unit can be seamlessly integrated into the completey wire-free radio monitoring system by simply using the Environmental Monitoring (EM) module from Packet Power, which also offers connections for temperature or humidity sensors.

Perfect environmental conditions at rack level

The Environmental Monitoring module family includes with the E300 and E302 monitors very compact members: At less than 50mm x 50mm in size, these battery-powered devices can be mounted in seconds directly to the rack door or to any other location that requires monitoring. Both compact environmental monitors include internal temperature and relative humidity sensors. The E302 model also includes two external temperature probe ports for measuring up to three temperature points. These compact models complement further Packet Power environmental monitoring solutions that support six and twelve temperature probes per unit for higher density monitoring.

Optimal loads, perfect cooling and improved safety

The monitoring family is completed by wire-free radio modules that gather all vital power parameters such as volts, amperes, watts, frequency, power factor, apparent power, consumption peaks at any distribution level in the data centre.

The particular highlight of all monitoring modules is that they are not connected via cable to each other. As soon as they are activated the monitoring devices instantly begin to share information via a self-configuring wire-free radio mesh network. All measurement data is wirelessly gathered by a system gateway that simply uses the SNMP or Modbus TCP/IP protocol to transmit the data to the EMX-GUI or a third party BMS or DCIM tool. With this information DC and facility experts have all important power usage and environmental parameters available at a glance, are able to balance loads and to control temperature, humidity and pressure at their cabinets perfectly – and by using the leak detection probes they are also able to minimise leak risks.    

Further information on the latest Packet Power products is available from Daxten on +44 (0)20 8991 6200 or via info.uk@daxten.com.