September 6, 2005
WeatherGoose: Environmental Monitor for the Masses
With the ever-increasing power and heat density of today's networking gear, IT pros need to keep close tabs on environmental conditions in equipment closets and data centers. We need a variety of sensors -- temperature, humidity, water, airflow, security -- and lots of them. One temperature sensor in a rack or closet is not enough, since one device buried in the rack could overheat, yet only slightly increase the total temperature of the whole stack. Yes, you could always build your own sensor systems out of networking components and clever programming, but that's tedious. Turn-key solutions have been available, but until recently, cost one arm and two legs. WeatherGoose from IT Watchdogs changes all that.
WeatherGoose is a 1-U five-inch-deep sensor array with embedded Web server and SNMP support. It has five sensors on board: temperature, humidity, airflow, light, and sound. The $400 Wx-Goos-1 model also sports three zero-to-five volt analog sensor connectors for bus-based sensors using the Maxim (formerly Dallas Semiconductor) OneWire network. OneWire lets you string dozens of individually-addressable sensors daisy-chain style along a single RJ-11 connector bus.
One very slick feature of this device is its internal data log and graphing capabiltiy. Unlike many other commercial sensors (costing three times as much), the WeatherGoose saves an archive of all its data internally, and provides its own graphs via a built-in Web server. You can extract this log as a CSV file using a single HTML request. This means you don't have to run an SNMP NMS to collect its data, although you can if you want, as the WeatherGoose has excellent SNMP support.
The Web interface also lets you configure e-mail notification for various alarm conditions, and this is about the only such device I've seen intelligently support POP-before-SMTP e-mail authentication -- essential if you want your e-mail notifcations to get delivered to an offsite e-mail service. The Web interface also provides URL access for PDA- and WPA-form factor displays.
The Wx-Goos-2 SuperGoose version adds a back-lit LCD display, alarm horn, and support for a video camera for another $100. For $800 you can get the PowerGoose, a WeatherGoose with 10 individually controllable 5-20R A.C. receptacles built in and power state monitoring to boot.
You can try one live at:
Full product details are on the vendor's Web page:
Posted by Mel Beckman at September 6, 2005 8:10 AM
