Looking for power metering equipment...

Mailman List Mirror (Read Only)
1

Preamble: We run a colocation center. We sell power to customers.

Question: We are looking for something that sits in the PDUs or branch
circuit-breaker distribution load centers, that, on a branch-circuit by
branch-circuit basis, can monitor amperage, and be queried by SNMP.

Considering there are several hundreds of circuits to be monitored, cheap
and featureless (all we need is amperage via SNMP) is fine.

Looked at things like Square-D PowerLogin stuff, but thats very pricey,
and does about 30x what we need.

Pointers? URLs? Experiences?

Thanks.

2

Hi Alex,

We monitor almost 400 20amp and 30amp 110V and 208V circuit breakers in
our data center in San Deigo. We utilize a system called Data Trax which
is tied into our Remote Power Panels and monitoring gear made by a
company called Invensys. Our power comes from our UPSs, ties into
redundant PDUs and then hits the RPPs where we pick up load with
inductive donuts.

In our case, the Data Trax system alerts us is the usage goes over a
certain amperage that we set. As we sell 1/3 cabinets and only allow
customers 5.33 amps, we set those to alert (via e-mail, trap and visual
warning in my NOC) when those customers go over 5 amps. On standard 20
amp circuits, we alert at 15 amps. The customer is also notified at the
same time via e-mail so they can take corrective action.

We utilize the same system to monitor our DC plants as well.

The system works very well for us. Hope this helps a bit. Let me know if
I can answer any other questions.

http://www.invensys.com/

3

I'd like to find some small, cheap ammeters. I only need a readable
analog dial for current, no SNMP or anything fancy. I'd like to be able
to hardwire one to each individual circuit going into the racks.

Anyone know a candidate?

Thanks,

Doug

4

As odd as it sounds: Radio Shack makes some little wattmeters that can
show current, wattage, voltage on its single outlet, for something
like $20-$30 (I forget, I bought one a year or so ago to play around
with). Digital readout though, not analog. One annoying thing: no
reset button for the cumulative stats, only powercycle will clear it.

mm

5

(cc'd to nanog ..)

Shoot, I should have looked first. I can't find it either. I found
the note from January 2003 where I heard about it, and it said:

    http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog_name=CTLG&category_name=CTLG%5+F008_021_003_000&product_id=63-1152

    or just go to radioshack.com and search for watt meter (two words)
    under test equipment orwhatever..

    it says they're sold out online, so I don't know if they discontinued
    it after not getting a lot of sales.

The last sentence is foreboding.

Sorry about that.

mm

6

Repairclinic.com has the Kill-a-watt meter for ~40.00. Goes
up to 15 amps, but requres a unplug-plug making it
questionable for data center use.

http://www.repairclinic.com/0081.asp?RccPartID=1012487&Acc=1

-e

From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]

On

Behalf Of Mark E. Mallett
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 10:59 AM
To: doug@nanog.con.com
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Looking for power metering equipment...

> Do you know a model number? I can't seem to find

anything

like this on
> radioshack.com.

(cc'd to nanog ..)

Shoot, I should have looked first. I can't find it

either. I found

the note from January 2003 where I heard about it, and it

said:

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog_name=CTLG&ca
te

gory%5Fname=CTLG%5+F008%5F021%5F003%5F000&product%5Fid=63%2D
1152

    or just go to radioshack.com and search for watt meter

(two words)

    under test equipment orwhatever..

    it says they're sold out online, so I don't know if

they

7

"Mark E. Mallett" wrote:

> Do you know a model number? I can't seem to find anything like this on
> radioshack.com.

(cc'd to nanog ..)

Shoot, I should have looked first. I can't find it either. I found
the note from January 2003 where I heard about it, and it said:

    http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog_name=CTLG&category_name=CTLG%5\+F008_021_003_000&product_id=63-1152

    or just go to radioshack.com and search for watt meter (two words)
    under test equipment orwhatever..

    it says they're sold out online, so I don't know if they discontinued
    it after not getting a lot of sales.

The last sentence is foreboding.

Sorry about that.

A second or two asking Google fetched up more answers than I am
interested in sifting, but here is one: