WatChED: a system for monitoring and remote control in data centers, network equipments and services;
in all those cases where reliability and security are very important, from a small environment up to large server farm
A totally hardware system able to control 24h a day server, services, power supply,
temperature, humidity, perimeter intrusion alarms, sensors for smoke or flooding etc.,
and send alarm messages both via SMS and E-mail.
This and much more for the new watChED,
A useful tool needed in all those enviroments, it doesn’t matter if small or large, where reliability and control of network infrastructure are very important.
System overview
Now days, the continuity and security of network services are critical in all environments.
For this reason the monitoring of their operation is often relayed on systems which are servers or network services for themselves and so they are subject to the same problems too!
The possibility of having an immediate notification of a problem, using a trusted channel such as the SMS by mean of a totally hardware system,
can help in avoiding all those situations where only a very expansive surveillance 24 hours a day could repair.
watChED is in effect a network device.
It is connected over the LAN with its own IP address and it is immediately working.
Both the control and the configuration are performed with graphical web page loaded over the device,
without any need of external software or text file modification. This makes all the operations very easy and quick.
No intervention over the controlled servers or services is required ad well as no deep knowledge of the network services operations.
Once finished the configuration watChED
starts its cyclic check of the servers and of the environmental parameter, updating constantly the graphical control panel and sending alarm messages via SMS and E-mail when any problem occurs:
malfunction of a server or service, external alarms activation, overcoming of the temperature and humidity thresholds, power supply failure.
Main features
- Monitoring of 128 servers or network services
- 8 digital inputs TTL level or photocoupled for external alarms and detectors
- 8 outputs with relays 48V/3A remotely driven
- a local sensor for temperature and humidity (temperature -40/+120°C, humidity 0-100%)
- a remote sensor for temperature and humidity over LAN (optional)
- backup battery
- alarms via SMS and EMAIL for each controller events and parameter
- up to 10 addresses for the SMS alarms and 10 addresses for the E-mail alarms
- external alarms forwarding through TCP/IP interface
- management of the alarms acknowledgment by the users
- power supply 12-24V DC - 9-18V AC
- 9 modules plastic case suitable for DIN rail mounting (external battery)
Device operation
Once watChED
has been connected to the network and properly configured, it starts the monitoring cycle of servers, services, environment parameters, external inputs and power supply.
For each one of these monitoring categories, different strategies are performed for the alarms detection (listed in the following part of the article).
As soon an alarm condition is detected, notifications are sent via Web, SMS and email.
Such notifications are repeated with regular intervals, up to a limit number of attempts which is configurable, to be sure that the alarms has been cared by one of the recipients at least.
Each of the recipients of the alarm can stop sending notifications after sending an acknowledgment of the alarm on the Web or via SMS.
Upon receipt of one acknowledgment at least, the device will consider the alarm notified.
Once the alarm condition has ceased, the device will send notifications to all recipients for the restored normal situation.
Monitoring of server and services
For the supervision of servers and services the device can operate three different kinds of control:
- Ping ICMP: in this case watChED
runs a ping request to the configured address and it waits for a reply within the default timeout
- Socket Opening: in this case, it opens a TCP / IP socket on the port specified in the configuration to verify the effective operation of a specific service
- Response from Socket: in this last mode, not only it opens a socket as described in the previous case,
but it also analyzes the received response content searching for specific keywords set in the configuration
Monitoring of environmental parameters
The monitoring of environmental parameters is supported by two kinds of temperature and humidity probes with a temperature range -40 to +120 ° C (+ / -0.1 ° C)
and a relative humidity range 0 to 100% (+ / -2%).
The first probe is mounted on board and connected wih a cable about 30 cm long.
The second probe, as an option, is connected to the main unit via LAN and can
be positioned wherever you want on a wired Ethernet network, even in locations far away.
The parameters measured with these probes are continuously monitored and you can configure alarms thresholds for both the maximum and minimum temperature and humidity values.
Monitoring of the external input
The system is equipped with 8 inputs, each one configurable as voltage free contact or photo-coupled 0-24V. Each input is continuously controlled and it can generate an alarm at status changing.
Inputs can be connected to smoke detectors, intrusion sensors, presence sensors, sensors flooding and whatever can generate a pulse output.
Monitoring of the Power Supply
The power supply section of the device includes: a battery backup that can keep the equipment full operation for over than 5 hours
(the exact lasting depends on the GSM field strength, the number of active outputs, etc.), complete charger circuit and detection of main power line fault.
The main power line status is constantly controlled and its failure is immediately reported as an alarm.
Another alarm is also sent in case of protract power supply fault with consequent battery charge exhaustion.
Forwarding external alarms
watChED
is also able to relay alarms coming from other devices to the configured recipients.
To do so, the external device generating the alarm just has to execute an HTTP/POST request
(to be managed by any programming or scripting language) toward the
watChED
which will arrange the forwarding and notify the successful transmission.
Relay outputs
The system also includes 8 relays outputs able of driving loads up to 48V with 3A maximum consumption.
These outputs can be switched both from the control web panel and via SMS.
The outputs can be used, for example, to reboot remotely equipments, to activate local alarms, to block access, etc.
Device configuration
Configuration is executed from graphical web pages which are loaded directly on the web server embedded in the system.
In this way, you don’t need any external software and you can carry out the configuration from any PC client connected to the network.
Download
About the watChED it is possible to download:
 User Manual version 4.00
Only Italian language, soon available the English translation.
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Tags: - SMS - SMS Machine - Telecontrollo -
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