The company NetPing east Co Ltd. announces the issue of firmware updates for the devices for monitoring microclimate in server rooms UniPing server solution v4/SMS and UniPing server solution v3. New firmware versions of devices include changes in functionality and error fixes.

This article is a logic sequel to the article «Example of Server Room Monitoring on the Basis of MONIT, INFLUXDB, GRAFANA, and NetPing Monitoring Units». Within this article, a feature of configuring SMS notifications from the Monit monitoring system using NetPing SMS gateway will be examined (hardware SMS gateway for Monit).

For sending SMS, it is possible to use the next devices of the NetPing company:

• a gateway for sending and receiving SMS notifications NetPing SMS;
• a device for monitoring microclimate of server rooms UniPing server solution v4/SMS;
• a device for remote power control (IP power distribution unit) for the server equipment NetPing 8/PWR-220 v4/SMS

A feature of SMS notifications will allow the IT personnel to react to events in the network urgently and thus minimize business downtime caused by failures in the operation of the IT equipment. Also, a company can significantly save on third-party services for SMS-sending because in this case, the cost of SMS will correspond to the tariff provided by the cell operator with no additional commissions.

Icinga is a monitoring system with the open source code. It was originally created as a branch of the Nagios monitoring system and resembles it very much. In this article, we will examine the example of configuring Icinga for working with the server room microclimate monitoring device UniPing server solution v4/SMS and install add-ons for building graphs and a map.

To implement a regarded solution, we will need:

1. A server with the installed Debian 9 (in the article, the IP address is 192.168.0.45);
2. UniPing server solution v4/SMS (in the article, the IP address is 192.168.0.100);
3. 1-Wire temperature sensor;
4. 1-Wire humidity sensor;
5. Door sensor;
6. Liquid sensor;
7. Airflow sensor;
8. Supply voltage sensor

The Dude network monitor is an application developed by the Latvian company MikroTik that can significantly improve the operation of the network environment. The application automatically scans all devices in specific subnetworks, draws and complies a network map as well as tracks services of devices and warns if some services have issues. A current version of The Dude server (when writing this article, it was the version 6.43.7 Stable) works under RouterOS only and allows monitoring the entire network infrastructure, from routers and switches to servers and virtual machines. Devices for microclimate monitoring of server rooms and remote controlling of the power supply (IP PDU) by NetPing company can also be connected to The Dude network monitor. A connection process is explored in details here. Also, we examined the process of configuration of e-mail notifications from The Dude in our blog before. In this article, we will consider a way of expanding the functionality of The Dude for sending SMS notifications about monitoring events (SMS gateway for The Dude). To send SMS, it is possible to use the next devices by NetPing company:

• a gateway for sending and receiving SMS notifications NetPing SMS;
• a microclimate monitoring device for server rooms UniPing server solution v4/SMS;
• a device for controlling the remote power supply (IP power distribution unit) for the server equipment NetPing 8/PWR-220 v4/SMS

A feature of SMS notifications will allow IT personnel to react to network events quicker and minimize business downtime caused by the IT equipment failure. Also, a company will be able to significantly save on third-party services for sending SMS because in this case, the price of SMS will correspond to the price charged by the cell phone operator with no additional commissions.

Logically, this article is a continuation of the article "Example of Monitoring a Server Room on a Basis of OpenNMS and NetPing Devices". Within this article, a feature of configuring SMS notifications from OpenNMS using NetPing SMS (SMS gateway for OpenNMS) will be regarded. 

When network engineers and administrators work, they often need to receive notifications in any time seven days a week. What communication means can be more suitable for this than SMS? Using external SMS services critically depends on the Internet connection, but what to do if there is a need to receive notifications about Internet connection failure? USB GSM modems could solve this issue but their operation stability and often level of support are not the best. There are very few modems that can boast working 24/7 without external maintenance (manual checking, scripts or other means). In addition, it must be connected to a server or a PC for operation. In turn, this server or PC will work as an SMS gateway, which is not the simplest and not the most reliable scheme. A proper solution in this situation would be the use of NetPing SMS. It is a standalone device that is connected to the Ethernet network and working as an SMS gateway for any monitoring system, service, or any other system. In addition, it has no disadvantages described above because it works independently as it does not need an Internet connection and a computer for the operation, and the 24/7 operation is implied.

This article suggests that you have already installed and configured the OpenNMS monitoring system and it works correctly. A configuring process of Open NMS monitoring system has been described before.

Microclimate monitoring of a server room, conditioner rotation system and other beautiful words set neither us nor you from maintaining a basic order in a server room. There is a chance to be a perfectionist and put each cable close to another one, or it is possible to scatter totally unnecessary stuff all over the server room and forget what labeling is and let it be. In this article, it will be discussed what a server room should never look like. Here, you will not see any horror pictures in a server room, when braided wires come down from the walls and wrap crooked racks with an ugly net. The article will discuss a pretty regular server room in a pretty usual company.

Cacti is an open-source web application. The system allows building graphs using RRDtool. Cacti gathers statistical data for specific periods of time and allows representing them in a graphic view. Most often, standard templates are used to represent statistics on a processor load, memory allocation, number running processes, using incoming/outgoing traffic. Basically, Cacti is only a shell to visualize accumulated monitoring data, namely drawing graphs. In this article, we will regard a way of extending Cacti features for sending SMS notifications on monitoring events (SMS gateway for Cacti). To send SMS, it is possible to use the next devices of NetPing company:

• hardware gateway for sending and receiving SMS notifications NetPing SMS;
• device for monitoring microclimate of server rooms UniPing server solution v4/SMS;
• device for remote controlling of the power supply (IP power distribution unit) for server equipment NetPing 8/PWR-220 v4/SMS

This allows minimizing the expenses for third-party services of SMS distribution because in this case, the cost of each SMS will be equal to one specified in the plan of your mobile network operator with no additional commissions.

When choosing a monitoring system for the IT infrastructure of a business, there is a need to take into consideration a range of factors. First, there is a need to evaluate if the functionality of a monitoring system matches your technical and business requirements. Then, there is a need to examine peculiarities of deployment and support to choose a tool that corresponds to your infrastructure and a competence level of IT specialists.

In this article, we will examine peculiarities, differences, and similarities of two popular monitoring systems Zabbix vs Nagios.

On this page, you will find the standards recommended by ASHRAE for monitoring the environment in your data center or server room. The settings below apply to A1-A4 class data centers and server rooms. Environmental standards are provided for rack-level monitoring, ambient monitoring and water leak detection.

Nagios is one of the service monitoring systems that is provided on the software market. One of the biggest advantages of this system is its flexibility. In this article, a basic Nagios configuration will be regarded for working with devices for server room monitoring NetPing on the example of UniPing server solution v3 and a set of sensors.

To implement a regarded solution, we will need:

• A server with Ubuntu 18.04 operating system, or a similar one (IP address 192.168.0.150);
• Working installation of Nagios Core 4.4.1 (hereinafter Nagios) on a server (installing and configuring will be described in the article);
• UniPing server solution v3 - 1 pc. (IP address 192.168.0.100);
• 1-wire temperature sensor - 1 pc.;
• 1-wire humidity sensor - 1 pc.;
• door sensor - 1 pc.;
• supply voltage sensor - 1 pc.;
• liquid sensor - 1 pc.;
• airflow sensor - 1 pc.

The need to remote monitoring of the object has always been considerably topical. Today, the market of video surveillance cameras (or closed-circuit cameras, or CCTV cameras) can offer devices for almost all needs that allow using CCTV cameras in any systems, including the systems for repeating and visualizing the information that comes from various sensors in monitoring systems. In this article, we will examine the example of connected CCTV cameras to a device for monitoring server rooms UniPing server solution v4/SMS and their configurations necessary for sending snapshots when sensors for visual evaluation of the environment triggered in a remote room. For example, after connecting a door sensor, we will be able to see a face of an individual, who opened the door. After connecting a smoke sensor, it is possible to evaluate actual smoke in the room. A leakage sensor shows a water level on the floor. There are also many other variants that are limited only by the administrator's imagination and the necessity in the monitoring.

To implement a described solution, you will need:

• a surveillance camera (CCTV camera). The main requirement towards the camera is the presence of Alarm IN inputs. A camera SNR-CI-DB30I is going to be used in the article;
• A monitoring device UniPing server solution v4/SMS (it is also possible to use any other device for monitoring or power controlling, equipped with IO lines, for example, UniPing server solution v3, UniPing v3, NetPing IO v2, NetPing 8/PWR-220 v4/SMS, NetPing 2/PWR-220 v4/SMS, NetPing 2/PWR-220 v3/ETH);
• Any sensor, the triggering of which is the basis for getting a snapshot from a camera. In the example, a door sensor is used.

Modern human aims to automate as many as possible spheres of his/her personal and professional life. Earlier in our blog, we had already examined a possibility of Using NetPing Devices to Solve the Issue of Registering Data from Water Flow Meters. In this article, we will examine one more automation variant – sending a monthly report about the water consumption data using the integration of a monitoring device produced by NetPing company with a Zabbix monitoring system.

In the report, there is a need to represent the next information:

• date of sending a report;
• information on the meter;
• final water/electricity consumption for the last month;
• readings at the beginning of the period;
• readings at the end of the period;
• a total sum of the payment in currency according to the tariff

In this article, the example of the simplest configuration of a Nagios IT infrastructure monitoring is shown that is necessary for working with NetPing devices for server room monitoring, on the example of UniPing v3. The largest advantage of this monitoring system is its flexibility (simplicity of writing user plugins for monitoring of virtually anything that can belong to a system engineer's job), and its disadvantage is a relative complexity of its configuration (configuration is performed through editing a configurational file).

To configure temperature monitoring in a server room using Nagios and UniPing v3, you will need:

• a monitoring server running under Ubuntu 9.04 Server, with an IP address 192.168.2.230;
• a device for environment monitoring of server rooms UniPing v3, with an IP address 192.168.2.10, and SNMP-Community «SWITCH», access to which is allowed at least from a monitoring server.

It is difficult to imagine a modern world without accurate timing. In many spheres of life, there is a need to have a very accurate clock, and often the accuracy must be significantly higher than the one of clocks used by people in everyday life. For example, requirements for the clock accuracy in flight control systems, spacecraft control systems, or military systems are the highest. Also, clocks of high accuracy are necessary for systems with simpler functions, such as billing systems and charging systems of cell phone operators and Internet providers, as well as the systems of bank transactions, in trading systems, manufacturing, and scientific complexes. In local networks, user authentication protocol Kerberos also utilizes comparing the clock of a controller domain with the clock of users' workstations. In computer networks, a synchronization is usually performed with time servers using an NTP protocol or its simplified variety called SNTP. In this article, we will examine peculiarities, differences, and examples of using these protocols.

Russian innovational company Eocortex that develops software for the IP video surveillance systems integrated devices NetPing IO v2 and UniPing v3 with its software product. This allowed expanding the usability of NetPing monitoring units on the basis of developed scenarios.

• start of video recording when a door sensor or a glass break sensor triggers;
• activation of a siren alarm when there is movement detected at the surveillance object;
• switching a lightening system on at the object to record video and when motion sensor triggers;
• opening/closing a barrier when license plates are recognized;
• notifying an operator on duty with a sound or signal indication and when finding abandoned items in public places;
• organization of access to a room by identification of an individual's face;
• informing about the crowding of people in public places using such methods as e-mail notifications, through SNMP notifications to a control panel, sound or signal indication;
• implementing features of camcorder washer when it gets dirty;
• following and guarding moving objects when they surpass the entrance to a specified zone with a lengthy stay at this zone;
• preventing and detecting fire situations in the moment of triggering a smoke sensor by switching off the equipment that works and activating video recording 

A benefit of this integration is a significant enlargement of software features for the systems of IP video surveillance Eocortex on the basis of NetPing devices for remote monitoring that are inexpensive, stable and easily integrable with different information systems.

Configuring a weekly timer in NetPing 2/PWR-220 v3/ETH power distribution unit (PDU) allows automating a manual process of switching on and off and rebooting the equipment. This minimizes a labor cost of the servicing personnel, reduces a reaction time for events and excludes a human factor for the error. A NetPing 2/PWR-220 v3/ETH IP power distribution unit can be used in server rooms for controlling a power supply of the infrastructure as well as on the remote industrial objects that are difficult to access. In addition to the main purpose, there is a feature of connecting external sensors that can control different parameters of the environment. The device can support a specific temperature, control air conditioning systems, and notify of emergency situations. All these features allow avoiding emergencies in the operation and minimizing possible financial losses.

NetPing 2/PWR-220 v3/ETH IP PDU has the next benefits:

• quick configuring of schedules for controlling a power supply to two independent sockets;
• using filters that allow setting exceptions in the schedule for holidays or days when the change is necessary;
• a stable operation of a timer and a device in the 24/7 365-days-a-year mode;
• remote manual switching on and off the equipment using a web interface or an SNMP protocol;
• using the «Watchdog» feature that allows rebooting the equipment that froze without the personnel.

We continue publishing a series of articles on implementing the integration of microclimate monitoring devices and devices for remote power distribution NetPing with a «Telegram» messenger. Earlier in our blog, we examined the process of bot creation для «Telegram», controlling sockets in IP PDU NetPing, controlling an air conditioner in a server room and controlling IO lines of a NetPing device using a «Telegram» messenger in enough details. In this article, we will regard a process of creating a tool for remote monitoring a microclimate in a server room using graphs sent to «Telegram».

A company NetPing east Co Ltd. announces the issue of the firmware version DKSF 54.3.4 for NetPing 4/PWR-220 v4/SMS IP power distribution unit. This firmware version contains bug fixes.

What has been changed in the latest version?

It is very often that the power supply of IT infrastructure objects of small and middle offices is a bottleneck. Server rooms of small and middle companies often are not organized well, do not satisfy informational, fire, and electrical safety requirements and are limited in space. Such conditions may lead to emergency situations that are followed by downtime or, if luckily, potential risks, which can cause unnecessary anxiety about the safety of employees and business as a whole. To solve these issues, there is a range of effective practical methods to improve the operability of information equipment in small server rooms. In this article, we will examine a feature of intelligent power management of a small server group using NetPing power distribution units.