LISA 2000 Abstract
Designing a Data Center Instrumentation System
Bob Drzyzgula, Federal Reserve Board
Abstract
This paper describes the author's efforts in designing an
external, out-of-band hardware monitoring and control system for use
with microcomputer-based server, storage and communications systems
deployed in a data center environment. This system, when complete,
will consist of a collection of microcontroller-based monitoring
nodes, one per monitored device. Each of these intelligent monitoring
nodes will be able to keep track of several temperatures, power supply
voltages, fan speeds, and various indicators of system activity. In
addition, they will have the ability to control a monitored system
under the direction of an administrator sitting at a web browser. As
of this writing, much of the initial research and architectural
planning is complete. One prototype board has been built and shown to
function as expected, and most of the required development tools and
licenses have been procured. The hardware design for the first
pilot/production board is largely complete. It is expected that these
first boards will be built and assembled by late 2000, and software
development for this project will extend into 2001.
|