Network Detection Methods

Been awhile since my last post, been caught up with a million things here and there.

Recently I have been trying to figure out a way to detect on a network when certain devices are actively connected to the network. Reason for this is when users need to know when a certain devices is sending and receiving data (especially when we are talking about mission-critical devices - such as metal detection, programmable ovens, etc). Nothing is worse when a user "thinks" that the device is sending data only to find out that it didn't and must redo the entire job again. This not only wastes time, but obviously wastes money.

All this is assuming that the device being used has an internal ethernet adapter or is using wireless.

FREEping is a free software that pings any IP and keeps track of it through time. By pinging a certain device at regular intervals you will know whether or not the device is connected or not. Users can simply view the monitor and know right away. I'm sure there is other ping software out there, but this one does the job well enough.

Another solution which is better is to have some sort of LED light on the outside of the device indicating the connection is good, but of course this usually has to be custom implemented if it wasn't already built-in to the device to begin with, which equals more money. But is a better indicator.

Either way, both solutions work fine and I can finally get this little issue out of the way.

Server Room - Temperature & Humidity

Well, thought I'd talk about this a little bit since this is something that isn't very clear cut. While temperature and humidity levels can vary among all server rooms depending on the number of servers there are, other hardware, type of room, size of room, location of room, etc. Most people aren't sure what the ideal temperature and humidity levels should be to properly cool their equipment.

I can say that from my experience it varies a lot, but there are general guidelines to follow. Most of the IT community (from talking with individuals in the field and through sources on the Internet) agree that the server room should not exceed roughly around 28 degrees Celsius in general. I think that's way too high in my opinion, 28 degrees in a room is pretty warm!

I've had the server room hit 26-27 degrees before and to me it was really warm. APC wrote a white paper to give their general guidelines (http://www.apcmedia.com/salestools/VAVR-5UDSLG_R2_EN.pdf). They say around 22-24 degrees Celsius is adequate with about 35%-50% humidity. Sun Microsystems in a articles (which I cannot find anymore) suggested around 21-23 degree Celsius for temperature.

From what I've read and heard so far and my own opinion on the matter, "normal" server rooms should have temperature of about 19-23 degrees Celsius and about 30%-50% humidity.
Minimum temperature I would say don't go below 16 degrees Celsius and for maximum temperature don't go above 25 degrees Celsius.

Server rooms should always be "cool" and "dry", but not "too cold" or "too dry". Anyway, that's my thoughts on that.