Mailing List Archive: NANOG: users

Power Analysis/Management Tools

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brandon.galbraith at gmail

Oct 26, 2009, 1:58 PM

Post #1 of 8 (176 views)
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Power Analysis/Management Tools

Not to go too off-topic, but if there is a more preferred location for me to
ask, please let me know. I'm looking for recommendations on open source
packages that people are using for monitoring power utilization of their
network/server gear.

We're using Cacti currently, pulling the data from APCs via SNMP, and I
wanted to check if someone had come across a better method before I
reinvented the wheel.

dpeterson at sixapart

Oct 26, 2009, 2:12 PM

Post #2 of 8 (164 views)
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Re: Power Analysis/Management Tools [In reply to]

I do the same, but with ganglia. I've noticed that different APCs
report power differently (after comparing APC output to BCMS output.)
Our newer servers also report power consumption via IPMI: /usr/bin/
ipmitool sdr type "Current". We also graph that via ganglia.

-Dave

On Oct 26, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Brandon Galbraith wrote:

> Not to go too off-topic, but if there is a more preferred location
> for me to
> ask, please let me know. I'm looking for recommendations on open
> source
> packages that people are using for monitoring power utilization of
> their
> network/server gear.
>
> We're using Cacti currently, pulling the data from APCs via SNMP,
> and I
> wanted to check if someone had come across a better method before I
> reinvented the wheel.

Greg.Whynott at oicr

Oct 26, 2009, 2:33 PM

Post #3 of 8 (161 views)
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RE: Power Analysis/Management Tools [In reply to]

I'd think SNMP will be what any product uses to query APC gear, even their own suite uses SNMP to collect information and receive traps.
We use cacti to graph our loads on the APC power bars and UPS gear, gives you everything you need on all phases/legs, was there something in particular you were after?

-g

-----Original Message-----
From: Brandon Galbraith [mailto:brandon.galbraith[at]gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 4:59 PM
To: nanog[at]nanog.org
Subject: Power Analysis/Management Tools

Not to go too off-topic, but if there is a more preferred location for me to
ask, please let me know. I'm looking for recommendations on open source
packages that people are using for monitoring power utilization of their
network/server gear.

We're using Cacti currently, pulling the data from APCs via SNMP, and I
wanted to check if someone had come across a better method before I
reinvented the wheel.

bblackford at gmail

Oct 26, 2009, 9:05 PM

Post #4 of 8 (151 views)
Permalink

Re: Power Analysis/Management Tools [In reply to]

Same. Cacti

-b

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Greg Whynott <Greg.Whynott[at]oicr.on.ca>wrote:

> I'd think SNMP will be what any product uses to query APC gear, even their
> own suite uses SNMP to collect information and receive traps.
> We use cacti to graph our loads on the APC power bars and UPS gear, gives
> you everything you need on all phases/legs, was there something in
> particular you were after?
>
> -g
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brandon Galbraith [mailto:brandon.galbraith[at]gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 4:59 PM
> To: nanog[at]nanog.org
> Subject: Power Analysis/Management Tools
>
> Not to go too off-topic, but if there is a more preferred location for me
> to
> ask, please let me know. I'm looking for recommendations on open source
> packages that people are using for monitoring power utilization of their
> network/server gear.
>
> We're using Cacti currently, pulling the data from APCs via SNMP, and I
> wanted to check if someone had come across a better method before I
> reinvented the wheel.
>

--
Bill Blackford
Network Engineer

chris at nifry

Oct 27, 2009, 4:34 PM

Post #5 of 8 (134 views)
Permalink

RE: Power Analysis/Management Tools [In reply to]

Cacti is a cracking bit of software, but I found this difficult to
integrate and customize to what we required.

I ended up writing our own, custom pollers, Database backend, web frontend
and rrd to generate the graphing.

We were quoted something like �50k for something awfully similar..

Cheers,

Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Brandon Galbraith [mailto:brandon.galbraith[at]gmail.com]
Sent: 26 October 2009 20:59
To: nanog[at]nanog.org
Subject: Power Analysis/Management Tools

Not to go too off-topic, but if there is a more preferred location for me to
ask, please let me know. I'm looking for recommendations on open source
packages that people are using for monitoring power utilization of their
network/server gear.

We're using Cacti currently, pulling the data from APCs via SNMP, and I
wanted to check if someone had come across a better method before I
reinvented the wheel.

nanog at daork

Oct 27, 2009, 5:38 PM

Post #6 of 8 (133 views)
Permalink

Re: Power Analysis/Management Tools [In reply to]

I haven't used cacti in a while, but does it let you combine several
RRD files in to one graph? If so that's useful for power stuff,
because you're likely to want to graph an aggregate of several things
across different devices - for example a+b power of a server, or
aggregate power usage for one customer with multiple power feeds.

Note that RRD has some cool stuff that cacti can't use by default,
including the "aberrant behavior detection" functionality - that's
probably quite useful for power and environmental stuff..

On 27/10/2009, at 5:05 PM, Bill Blackford wrote:

> Same. Cacti
>
> -b
>
> On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Greg Whynott
> <Greg.Whynott[at]oicr.on.ca>wrote:
>
>> I'd think SNMP will be what any product uses to query APC gear,
>> even their
>> own suite uses SNMP to collect information and receive traps.
>> We use cacti to graph our loads on the APC power bars and UPS gear,
>> gives
>> you everything you need on all phases/legs, was there something in
>> particular you were after?
>>
>> -g
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Brandon Galbraith [mailto:brandon.galbraith[at]gmail.com]
>> Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 4:59 PM
>> To: nanog[at]nanog.org
>> Subject: Power Analysis/Management Tools
>>
>> Not to go too off-topic, but if there is a more preferred location
>> for me
>> to
>> ask, please let me know. I'm looking for recommendations on open
>> source
>> packages that people are using for monitoring power utilization of
>> their
>> network/server gear.
>>
>> We're using Cacti currently, pulling the data from APCs via SNMP,
>> and I
>> wanted to check if someone had come across a better method before I
>> reinvented the wheel.
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Bill Blackford
> Network Engineer
>
> !DSPAM:22,4ae671cf233691970413987!
>
>

langseth at meridian-enviro

Oct 29, 2009, 8:58 AM

Post #7 of 8 (120 views)
Permalink

Re: Power Analysis/Management Tools [In reply to]

Nathan Ward wrote:
> I haven't used cacti in a while, but does it let you combine several RRD
> files in to one graph? If so that's useful for power stuff, because
> you're likely to want to graph an aggregate of several things across
> different devices - for example a+b power of a server, or aggregate
> power usage for one customer with multiple power feeds.

Yes this is possible, without going into it too deeply since this is
nanog, not cacti-users. You create the individual graphs, then create a
new graph Graph management-> Add (with host and template set to none)
then add data sources from other graphs/hosts. The nice thing about
doing it this way is if you already have data being graphed, it will use
the history to create the new graph.

We use this with our bandwidth usage graph for our individual providers
to show the aggregate bandwidth, and some other internal graphs that
have history going back years. And at $oldjob I used it to show rf
usage on our towers, quite handy with equipment that automatically
changed frequency.

stef-list at memberwebs

Oct 30, 2009, 5:20 PM

Post #8 of 8 (98 views)
Permalink

Re: Power Analysis/Management Tools [In reply to]

Chris Russell wrote:
> I ended up writing our own, custom pollers, Database backend, web frontend
> and rrd to generate the graphing.

Shameless plug ... rrdbot does efficient light-weight snmp polling, and
should be very flexible for mixing with other software:

http://memberwebs.com/stef/software/rrdbot/

Cheers,

Stef

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