Power monitoring Re: Power Outage in Chicago Loop
On Sun, 08 October 2000, Kevin Day wrote:
I'm currently about 30 miles north of the loop... at 12:46 the voltage coming into the building here was 140-160 volts for several minutes(according to our UPS). I'm wondering if the power was just going nuts everywhere else, causing ameritech equipment to go nuts. Possible explaination for packet loss?
After my first summer in PG&E country, I've been wondering if there was a way for ISPs to share power quality data about the local utility. For the most part, every ISP in a region experiences the same woes and problems of the electric utility. Most ISPs are capable of at least minimal monitoring. If the shared data was limited to only the upstream side of the ISPs power system, it would show the performance of the utility; but ISPs could still keep any internal problems secret. While a power quality meter would be nice, even SNMP capable UPSes can report basic data. One of the reasons I'm interested is I've needed to research what things like the CBEMA curve really means, and discovered how little hard data exists about power and computer centers. Almost all the data comes from three studies in the 1970's by IBM, Bell Labs and the US Navy. Since then we've transitioned from mainframes to minicomputers to pc's; and the power supply industry is undergoing deregulation. Like most industries, there are academics who would love to crunch any data they could get. The question is how much data could we get. What's in it for ISPs? Essentially the same things as when IBM, Bell Labs and the US Navy did their studies two decades ago. What should we design our systems to handle? Are things really as bad as the UPS and surge protection vendors lead us to believe? What is "normal" power throughout the country? How severe can power get?
On 9 Oct 2000, Sean Donelan wrote:
After my first summer in PG&E country, I've been wondering if there was a way for ISPs to share power quality data about the local utility. For the most part, every ISP in a region experiences the same woes and problems of the electric utility. Most ISPs are capable of at least minimal monitoring. If the shared data was limited to only the upstream side of the ISPs power system, it would show the performance of the utility; but ISPs could still keep any internal problems secret. While a power quality meter would be nice, even SNMP capable UPSes can report basic data.
We are just now starting to graph voltage and current on each phase as well as DC voltage, DC Current, temp, and humidity. We are doing all this via AI Spy units in each pop. <Snip>
What is "normal" power throughout the country? How severe can power get?
Well that thing that freaks me out is the voltage swing over a given day. At first I thought the problem was that the building did not have large enough feed, but now that we are graphing voltage on other datacenters we see the same trend. We see voltage swings in my cities of up to 25 volts every day.
<> Nathan Stratton CTO, Exario Networks, Inc. nathan@robotics.net nathan@exario.net http://www.robotics.net http://www.exario.net
Check out telecom papers: http://www.robotics.net/papers
I'll bite ... I've been looking for a unit that monitors just those parameters (voltage and current on each phase as well as DC voltage, DC Current, temp, and humidity) for the same reasons. Would you care to share how it's being done? Dave
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Nathan Stratton Sent: Monday, October 09, 2000 11:27 AM To: Sean Donelan Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Power monitoring Re: Power Outage in Chicago Loop
On 9 Oct 2000, Sean Donelan wrote:
After my first summer in PG&E country, I've been wondering if there was a way for ISPs to share power quality data about the local utility. For the most part, every ISP in a region experiences the same woes and problems of the electric utility. Most ISPs are capable of at least minimal monitoring. If the shared data was limited to only the upstream side of the ISPs power system, it would show the performance of the utility; but ISPs could still keep any internal problems secret. While a power quality meter would be nice, even SNMP capable UPSes can report basic data.
We are just now starting to graph voltage and current on each phase as well as DC voltage, DC Current, temp, and humidity. We are doing all this via AI Spy units in each pop.
<Snip>
What is "normal" power throughout the country? How severe can power get?
Well that thing that freaks me out is the voltage swing over a given day. At first I thought the problem was that the building did not have large enough feed, but now that we are graphing voltage on other datacenters we see the same trend. We see voltage swings in my cities of up to 25 volts every day.
<> Nathan Stratton CTO, Exario Networks, Inc. nathan@robotics.net nathan@exario.net http://www.robotics.net http://www.exario.net
Check out telecom papers: http://www.robotics.net/papers
Dave, I believe Applied Innovations makes a product like you are looking for. Their AIspy should do the trick, and works with all standard transducers, although a source for those escapes me at this moment. I was very impressed with this product. http://www.aiinet.com/ Mike Ventimiglia ----- Original Message ----- From: David Hares <dhares@networktwo.net> To: Nathan Stratton <nathan@robotics.net>; Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> Cc: <nanog@merit.edu>; Dzh-Marc <dzh-marc@fw.networktwo.net> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 4:00 PM Subject: RE: Power monitoring Re: Power Outage in Chicago Loop
I'll bite ...
I've been looking for a unit that monitors just those parameters (voltage and current on each phase as well as DC voltage, DC Current, temp, and humidity) for the same reasons. Would you care to share how it's being done?
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Nathan Stratton Sent: Monday, October 09, 2000 11:27 AM To: Sean Donelan Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Power monitoring Re: Power Outage in Chicago Loop
On 9 Oct 2000, Sean Donelan wrote:
After my first summer in PG&E country, I've been wondering if there was a way for ISPs to share power quality data about the local utility. For the most part, every ISP in a region experiences the same woes and problems of the electric utility. Most ISPs are capable of at least minimal monitoring. If the shared data was limited to only the upstream side of the ISPs power system, it would show the performance of the utility; but ISPs could still keep any internal problems secret. While a power quality meter would be nice, even SNMP capable UPSes can report basic data.
We are just now starting to graph voltage and current on each phase as well as DC voltage, DC Current, temp, and humidity. We are doing all this via AI Spy units in each pop.
<Snip>
What is "normal" power throughout the country? How severe can power get?
Well that thing that freaks me out is the voltage swing over a given day. At first I thought the problem was that the building did not have large enough feed, but now that we are graphing voltage on other datacenters we see the same trend. We see voltage swings in my cities of up to 25 volts every day.
<> Nathan Stratton CTO, Exario Networks, Inc. nathan@robotics.net nathan@exario.net http://www.robotics.net http://www.exario.net
Check out telecom papers: http://www.robotics.net/papers
I received a few dozen requests for info on what hardware I was using so I thought I would just post the info: Aispy (800) 247-9482 AIspy Data acquisition module AItemp Temperature AIhum Humidity AIdcvolt DCVolts American Aerospace (888) 873-8559 S465-150 150amp DC clampon S465-500 500amp DC Clampon 1055-50 50amp AC passthrough 108X-270 270V AC
<> Nathan Stratton CTO, Exario Networks, Inc. nathan@robotics.net nathan@exario.net http://www.robotics.net http://www.exario.net
Check out the telecom papers section: http://www.robotics.net/papers
participants (4)
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David Hares -
Mike Ventimiglia -
Nathan Stratton -
Sean Donelan