I saw a self-adhesive temperature strip in front of a rack when I was at a co-location center earlier last week where I thought I can really use in my lab. I have an Avtech room temperature probe in my lab that works great. Sensors everywhere, can monitor via web browser, automated email alerts, etc. but the idea of having a physical temperature strip in front of each rack to quickly look at when in the lab somewhat appeals to me. Its like having a wrist watch on you to quickly glance at the time instead of pulling your phone out every time… I don’t know, maybe I’m just weird?
The strips came from dataclean.com and they have some goodies if you are a datacenter guy. Stuff from airflow management to contamination control and seismic bracing.
I have 9 racks, and want a strip for the front and back for each one of them. So I decided to order a pack of 25 which was $46.95, which comes down to $1.87 each. Not too bad considering an entry level model of the Avtech room alert is $149 and you only have two sensors.
The strips are thin enough to fit on the post of the rack itself and the adhesive seems to hold up so far.
Just out of curiosity, I decided to measure the temperature from my temperature gun.. Not too bad!
Additional notes:
I still think you should have remote monitoring on your datacenter. A dedicated device like an Avtech or even scripts to read server sensors and send out an email. It will help out, especially if the air conditioning fails at 3AM…