Application Note

ManualsBrandsFluke ManualsMeasurement toolsFluke 975

Application Note

Monitoring temperature,

humidity, and airflow

in data centers

A market in need of measurement

F r o m t h e F l u k e D i g i t a l L i b r a r y @ w w w . f l u k e . c o m / l i b r a r y

Using a Fluke Ti20 Thermal Imager and a

Fluke 975V AirMeter™ test tool, customers

protect their servers by monitoring envi-

ronments in rented data centers.

The international law firm

depicted in this story owns no

data centers, despite the large

amount of data it stores and

retrieves. Like many other high-

tech companies, it rents space for

its servers in data centers owned

by others. “The sites we use are

just hosts,” says the law firm’s

data center support analyst. “The

racks we have there are ours, but

we rent the environment, power

and the bandwidth.”

Each of the firm’s offices has

one or two racks of servers in a

local data center to service that

site’s needs. In addition, the

company has a centralized U.S.

server location, a secondary cen-

ter for backup and redundancy,

and plans for new locations

overseas.

Fluke instruments used

At present, the analyst uses two

Fluke instruments to monitor the

firm’s data centers and the status

of its servers in those centers:

The Fluke 975 AirMeter can

record ten fundamental param-

eters associated with indoor air

quality. Of special importance to

data centers are air temperature,

relative humidity, and airflow (air

velocity). Since servers generate

considerable heat, they must be

cooled to manufacturer-specified

temperatures and subjected to no

more than 45 to 50 percent rela-

tive humidity.

Summary of content (3 pages)

PAGE 1
Monitoring temperature, humidity, and airflow in data centers A market in need of measurement Application Note Using a Fluke Ti20 Thermal Imager and a Fluke 975V AirMeter ™ test tool, customers protect their servers by monitoring environments in rented data centers. The international law firm depicted in this story owns no data centers, despite the large amount of data it stores and retrieves. Like many other hightech companies, it rents space for its servers in data centers owned by others.
PAGE 2
are told by the data centers,” the analyst says. “Then, if necessary, we can suggest corrective measures to keep our servers functioning efficiently.” The support analyst cites the local data center as an example: “The way the room is set up right now greatly restricts the air flow going to some of the devices positioned across the room from the air-conditioning unit. Using the Ti20, we were able to take temperature readings of surfaces in each area of the room.
PAGE 3
The first situation usually occurs because a user of the data center does not need all eight slots in a rack or because the data center lacks the capability to provide power to a full rack. In either case, there are empty slots. Blanking panels should cover those unused slots so that they are not open to the environment. The analyst says that he has documented instances of missing blanking panels at the firm’s secondary center. “There were empty spaces on the top four slots,” he says.