Virtual data center environmental monitoring system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9638583-B2
Application number	US-201414284337-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 21, 2014
Priority date	May 21, 2014
Publication date	May 2, 2017
Grant date	May 2, 2017

Abstract

A virtual temperature monitoring system in a data center communicates with servers mounted in racks to receive internal temperature data generated by internal temperature sensors of the servers. The system derives a virtual sensor measurement of external temperatures external to the server, including a portion of a cold aisle that extends proximate to a rack in which the server is mounted, based upon a relationship between the received internal temperature sensors and the external environment. Sensor data from other sensors can be received via a building management system, and building management signals to the building management system can be generated based at least partially on the virtual sensor data. The virtual sensor data can be used to generate a graphical representation of the servers that highlights relative thermal characteristics of the servers based on the virtual external sensor measurements, including heat indices, excursions beyond thresholds, historical excursion histories, etc.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A data center, comprising:
a plurality of computer systems supported in one or more racks, each computer system of the plurality of computer systems comprising an internal computer temperature sensor configured to generate an internal temperature sensor measurement indicating an internal environment temperature of the respective computer system;
a cold aisle, extending adjacent to a front end of each of the one or more racks, the cold aisle configured to supply air to respective internal environments of each of the plurality of computer systems as cooling air via a respective front end of each of the plurality of computer systems, the cold aisle comprising a plurality of external environments that each correspond to a separate one of the plurality of computer systems;
a hot aisle, extending adjacent to a rear end of each of the one or more racks, the hot aisle configured to receive the air from the respective internal environments of each of the plurality of computer systems as exhaust air via a respective rear end of each of the computer systems; and
a virtual monitoring system device, communicatively coupled to each of the plurality of computer systems and configured to:
generate a plurality of virtual external temperature sensor measurements, each instance of the virtual external temperature sensor measurements indicating a virtual sensor measurement of an external environment temperature of a separate external environment of the plurality of external environments, based at least in part upon the internal temperature sensor measurement received from the computer system corresponding to the respective external environment and a respective predetermined offset relationship between the internal temperature of the computer system and the respective external environment;
determine a temperature difference between a particular external virtual temperature sensor measurement and a different external virtual temperature sensor measurement included in the plurality of virtual external temperature sensor measurements for the plurality of external environments; and
determine that exhaust air is being recirculated through at least one of the racks to the cold aisle, based at least in part upon a determination that the temperature difference exceeds at least one predetermined threshold temperature difference value.

2. The data center of claim 1 , further comprising:
a building management system (BMS) device configured to receive a relative humidity sensor measurement associated with the plurality of external environments from a remote humidity sensor located in the cold aisle; and
wherein the virtual monitoring system device is configured to generate a virtual heat index measurement indicating a heat index value of each of the plurality of external environments based at least in part upon the external virtual temperature sensor measurement and the relative humidity sensor measurement; and
wherein the virtual monitoring system device is further configured to generate at least one building management signal to command the BMS device to control at least an airflow of cooling air to the cold aisle, based at least in part upon the derived virtual heat index measurements.

3. The data center of claim 1 , wherein:
the virtual monitoring device is configured to generate at least one graphical representation of the plurality of computer systems that includes a selectively determined highlighting of the at least one graphical representation based at least in part upon virtual external temperature sensor measurements associated with the respective plurality of computer systems.

4. A system comprising:
at least one computing device, the at least one computing device comprising:
a worker module configured to communicate with at least one remote computer system in at least one rack to receive at least one internal temperature sensor measurement, generated by at least one internal sensor of the at least one remote computer system, indicating at least one internal temperature of the at least one remote computer system; and
a processor module configured to:
derive at least one virtual external temperature sensor measurement of at least one external temperature of at least one environment external to the at least one remote computer system, based at least in part upon the received at least one internal temperature sensor measurement and a relationship between the at least one internal temperature and the at least one external environment;
determine a temperature difference between a particular external virtual temperature sensor measurement and a different external virtual temperature sensor measurement included in the at least one virtual external temperature sensor measurement;
determine that exhaust air is being recirculated through at least one of the at least one rack to the cold aisle, based at least in part upon a determination that the temperature difference exceeds at least one predetermined threshold temperature difference value; and
generate at least one output signal that identifies an occurrence of recirculation.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein:
the processor module is configured to determine a present operating state associated with at least one of the at least one remote computer system, based at least in part upon the derived at least one virtual external temperature sensor measurement and at least one predetermined threshold value.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein:
the at least one computing device comprises a room sensor module configured to receive a relative humidity sensor measurement of at least one of the at least one external environment from a remote building management system (BMS) device associated with the at least one external environment proximate to the at least one remote computer system; and
the processor module is further configured to derive a virtual heat index measurement indicating a heat index value of the at least one external environment proximate to at least the at least one remote computer system based at least in part upon the at least one external virtual temperature sensor measurement and the relative humidity sensor measurement;
wherein, to determine the present operating state associated with at least the at least one remote computer system, the processor module is configured to determine that the heat index value of the derived virtual heat index measurement exceeds at least one predetermined heat index threshold value.

7. The system of claim 5 , wherein:
the processor module is configured to derive a plurality of virtual external temperature sensor measurements of external temperatures of a plurality of environments each external to a separate one of a set of remote computer systems installed in a rack, based at least in part upon a received internal temperature sensor measurement from a separate one of the remote computer systems and a relationship between the internal temperature and the external environment; and
to determine the present operating state associated with at least the at least one remote computer system, based at least in part upon the derived virtual external temperature sensor measurement and the at least one predetermined threshold value, the processor module is configured to determine a present operating state associated with the rack, based at least in part upon the plurality of virtual external temperature sensor measurements and the at least one predetermined threshold value.

8. The system of claim 5 , wherein:
the processor module is further configured to generate at least one graphical representation of at least the at least one remote computer system that includes a selectively determined highlighting of the graphical representation based at least in part upon

Assignees

• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Ross Peter George
• Ferreira Adolfo Bravo
• Towner Richard Chadwick

Classifications

• H05K7/20836 Primary

  Thermal management, e.g. server temperature control · CPC title

• G01K3/14 Primary

  in respect of space · CPC title

• G06F11/3089

  Monitoring arrangements determined by the means or processing involved in sensing the monitored data, e.g. interfaces, connectors, sensors, probes, agents (software debugging using additional hardware using a specific debug interface G06F11/3656; performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring G06F11/3466) · CPC title

• G06F11/3452

  Performance evaluation by statistical analysis · CPC title

• G05D23/1917

  using digital means · CPC title