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Certain areas in your organization, such as a server room, lab or other facility may be dependent on a constant temperature, and receiving prompt notification of any changes in ambient conditions in these areas can be vital to your corporation. A sudden change in temperature or humidity levels could indicate a serious problem with the air conditioning unit, for example. Immediate action may be required to prevent possible damage to heat-sensitive equipment.

ipMonitor's SNMP - QA Monitor can be used in combination with APC's UPS Environmental Monitoring SmartSlot Card to monitor temperature and humidity in a specific area and ensure it remains at the desired operating level around the clock.

To implement the example outlined in this tutorial, you will need to install APC's UPS Environmental Monitoring SmartSlot Card. The embedded card enables monitoring of environmental conditions.

For more information, please refer to APC's website and product documentation.

	Click the XML icon to download resources designed to be used with this tutorial. The XML file includes two preconfigured Monitors, as well as a predefined Group for the Monitors.
	To incorporate the Cisco MIBs described in this article into your ipMonitor installation, access the SNMP MIB Database Builder located within the ipMonitor Support Portal. Note: Custom databases are only available to registered customers. You must log in to access this section. 1. Expand the Enterprise branch, and place a checkmark beside American Power Conversion (APC) Corporation. 2. Click the Construct MIB Database button located at the bottom of the page. Shortly after selecting your custom MIBs for creation, you will receive an email indicating that your database is ready for download. This email will contain a link to your personalized SNMP MIB database. Additionally, each visit to the Support Portal home page will also contain the link to your most recently created database.
	Click the PDF icon to open a printable PDF version of this tutorial. It includes all the information found here, including images from the ipMonitor software, diagrams, and links to additional resources.

Monitor 1

Monitor Name	APC Environmental Sensor :: Humidity (%)
Monitor Type	SNMP - QA Monitor
SNMP Object Type	iemStatusProbeCurrentHumid
OID	1.3.6.1.4.1.318.1.1.10.2.3.2.1.6.1
Returns	The relative humidity in the room, expressed as a percentage.
Monitoring Condition	Pass if greater than 25 and less than 50 Monitor failure indicates that the ambient humidity in the room is below 25 percent, or above 50 percent.

Monitor 2

Monitor Name	APC Environmental Sensor :: Temperature (Celsius)
Monitor Type	SNMP - QA Monitor
SNMP Object Type	iemStatusProbeCurrentTemp
OID	1.3.6.1.4.1.318.1.1.10.2.3.2.1.4.1
Returns	The ambient temperature in the room, in degrees Celsius.
Monitoring Condition	Pass if greater than 10 and less than 38 Monitor failure indicates that the ambient temperature in the room is below 10 degrees Celsius, or above 38 degrees Celsius.

Note: All imported Monitors are initially disabled. This allows you to make changes to the default settings before the Monitors are enabled to go live in a production environment. Once the Monitors are imported, the following settings will need to be verified (and if necessary, modified) for each Monitor:

• IP Address
• UDP Port
• Community

To learn more about modifying the above parameters, please refer to the 'Configuring the SNMP - QA Monitor' section of this tutorial.

TIP For detailed instructions regarding importing XML files into your ipMonitor installation, please refer to the tutorial entitled "How to Import and Export Configuration Settings".

For the purposes of this tutorial, we'll be referring to the preconfigured Monitors included in the XML resource download. Alternatively, you can create a new Monitor by clicking the Monitors menu option and then clicking Add a Monitor. Choose the SNMP - QA Monitor from the Multi-Transaction / QA category.

1. Enter a unique, descriptive name for the Monitor in the Name field.
2. Choose whether to automatically add the new Monitor to a particular Group.
3. Check the Enabled checkbox.
4. Choose whether you want the Monitor to Store Monitor Statistics for Recent Activity and Historical Reports.

5. Specify the location of the UPS Environmental Monitoring Card. Both IP Address and Domain Name are valid entries.
6. If needed, specify a different UDP Port Number. By default, the standard Port Number used for SNMP communication (Port 161) is already entered.
7. If you are using one of the preconfigured Monitors, the appropriate OID for the monitoring task is already entered. Otherwise, you will need to specify an OID path in the OID field.
8. Enter the SNMP Community string that allows ipMonitor to communicate with the SNMP agent.
9. Select the SNMP Version used by the device to be monitored. Both ipMonitor and the target device must use the same SNMP Version. Available options are: SNMP Version 1 and SNMP Version 2.

The type of data supported by the selected OID determines the possible methods of analysis using the SNMP - QA Monitor.

The following example uses the Analysis of Test Results settings configured for the APC Environmental Sensor :: Humidity (%) Monitor provided in the XML resource download.

1. In order to return the desired value (the relative humidity in the area), the SNMP - QA Monitor is configured to analyze the result as Numeric Data.
2. The expected result is determined to be greater than (>) 25 and less than (<) 50.

Note: The recommended Analysis of Test Results settings should pass immediately after being enabled. Optimum Monitor settings, however, will vary with each environment and these settings may need to be adjusted.

TIP By default, the Timing intervals for each parameter are set to 300 seconds. If needed, adjust these defaults to meet your specific monitoring environment's requirements until the optimum settings are reached.

For more information regarding the SNMP - QA Monitor, refer to the Monitors section of ipMonitor's Context-Sensitive Help system, and then select Monitor Types, followed by SNMP - QA. The Context-Sensitive Help can be accessed by clicking the Help link located in the top right corner of ipMonitor's Administration web interface.

For information on other features and concepts related to those discussed in this article, refer to the following ipMonitor resources:

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Last Updated: April 6, 2006 | What did you think of this topic?