Data centers are becoming more powerful, but at the same time, energy consumption and infrastructure complexity are increasing. Operators are investing in redundant power supplies, modern cooling systems, and monitoring. However, redundancy alone is not enough to ensure stable operation. It is crucial to detect changes early on, before they affect availability.
KentixONE 8.7 therefore includes new features designed to help operators monitor the rack environment, power quality, and alarm paths.
When the room temperature is no longer sufficient
Nowadays, room temperature alone often does not provide enough information about the actual conditions inside a server cabinet. Different loads, airflow patterns, or cooling strategies can cause significant temperature variations within a rack.
The New Environmental Sensor as an Add-On KDL-10 enables the measurement of temperature, humidity, and dew point at freely selectable locations within the rack. Up to three sensors can be operated on a single SmartPDU. This allows for the monitoring of multiple measurement points along the airflow.
This provides operators with more precise insights into temperature trends, hot spots, and climatic changes within the server cabinet. This creates a better foundation for evaluating and optimizing existing cooling designs.
Keeping an Eye on Power Quality
The stability of an IT infrastructure depends not only on the availability of power, but also on its quality. With KentixONE 8.7, SmartPDUs therefore support the monitoring of total harmonic distortion (THD) for current and voltage.
THD describes harmonic distortion in the power grid, which can be caused by switching power supplies, UPS systems, or other power-electronic loads, among other things. High THD values do not necessarily lead to immediate problems, but they can indicate additional stress on electrical components.
Continuous THD monitoring provides a broader view of the power supply and also highlights changes in power quality.
The alarm system must work even in exceptional circumstances
An alarm is only effective if it reaches the appropriate people. That is why the alerting infrastructure was expanded with KentixONE 8.7.
The “Redundant Mailing” feature allows alarm messages to be sent even if the connection to the KentixONE Online Service or the primary Internet connection fails. Alternative mail servers and mobile fallback connections can be used for this purpose. This provides additional protection not only for the infrastructure itself but also for the transmission path used to deliver the alerts.
Resilience Through Transparency
The new features in KentixONE 8.7 enhance transparency in key areas of the data center: rack cooling, power quality, and alerting. This additional information helps identify trends early on and evaluate them more thoroughly. After all, many critical problems do not arise suddenly. They develop gradually—for example, due to changing temperature conditions, declining cooling capacity, or deteriorating power quality. Those who recognize such changes early can take corrective action in a timely manner.
