Radio Tags Keep Data Centre Bills Down

Despite having a highly networked environment, with wires everywhere, data centre managers need wireless tags to manage and monitor energy use and efficiency, vendors say.

Efficient data centres require a close watch on power and environmental aspects of IT kit, but extra Ethernet connections are a wasteful way to provide this, according to RF Code, an asset-tagging company which brought server-room products to Europe, at the Data Centre World event in London last week.

Radio tags keep an eye on things

“You need sensors throughout the data centre to spot local CRAC [computer room air conditioning] failures,” Chad Riseling, vice president of sales at RF Code told eWEEK Europe at the event.

The tags use a proprietary data networking technique, because wireless sensor standards such ZigBee are too heavyweight and costly, said Riseling: “Our sensors send only a few bytes at a time, so this is all we need.”

Fast reporting of temperature anomalies can reveal places where the cold-aisle or hot-aisle isolation has broken down and cooling systems may be working overtime, said Riseling. Power monitoring also can show when server fans are having to act up, as some aspect of the data centre is at a low efficiency level.

As well as RF tags, the company also offers IR -based rack level asset tracking, in which infra-red tags on the servers and other kit check in with local networked IR sensors to keep a continuous record of the whereabouts of equipment for security reasons.