April 01, 2000
Is Your Network Hot?
Is your network hot?
We don't want to know if you're running the latest multi-gigabit router, or the newest non-blocking core switch. We're warning you that you might have a device on the network that's overheating!
Temperature can play a large role in the availability of your network. We have seen many routers and core switches fail because of an overheating condition. As our networks become larger and more distributed, our network devices are located in different locations, and often in different states or countries. We can't easily walk into a computer room to check the temperature if it's located 3000 miles away!
If you have a SNMP-based network monitoring system, you should consider setting SNMP traps for high temperature, or configure a polling mechanism that will retrieve the temperature over a period of time. Each network device has a manufacturer's technical specification that details the operational temperature range for the device.
Increases in the internal temperature of a network device could be caused by dust collecting on fan blades, an air conditioning problem, or someone leaving their notebook on the intake vent of a device! An environmental alarm on a management console may provide enough warning to prevent any network downtime.
Many manufacturers are including a temperature sensor and other environmental sensors in their SNMP MIB. For instance, many Cisco devices include a Cisco Environmental Monitor MIB:
iso.org.dod.internet.private.enterprise.ciscoMgmt.ciscoEnvMonMIB
or
1.3.6.1.4.9.9.13
Other manufacturers have similar MIB entries. Check your documentation for your environmental MIB variables!
Y'all be cool.
Posted by james_messer at April 1, 2000 04:38 PM
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