About the project
A national internet and cable-TV provider asked us for a remote monitoring and control system covering several hundred locations where it operates distribution points: cabinets, street enclosures and 19” rack equipment, protected by small local UPS units. The case study was published in 2017, about a year after the installations were completed.
Project requirements
There was no direct information from the field: nothing about the presence of mains voltage and nothing about the health of the local UPS units. Service-availability complaints reached the operator only indirectly, through customer support, with no way to pinpoint the cause. There had been repeated cases where UPS units failed to provide backup power because of discharged batteries.
Basic alarms
Alerts on unauthorized opening of the cabinet or enclosure and on high temperature inside it.
UPS battery state
Warnings when the available battery capacity reserve drops, before the UPS is left without backup power during a mains outage.
Limited budget
The costs had to cover both the monitoring and control device and the monitoring and alerting software.
The UPS units installed in these spaces had no management interface and no auxiliary alarm outputs, so they could not be monitored directly.
The solution
We designed and manufactured a dedicated device, the Claritech RT-1, sized in functionality and cost for the scope of the project. Over 250 devices were installed across the network, each identified by the code and name of its location.
The devices are polled over SNMP by the InterMapper monitoring platform, installed on a virtualized server in the client’s network. Location states - normal, warning, alarm - are shown color-coded on a map of Romania, events are stored in log files, and the measured values are plotted as graphs.
Mains voltage measurement
An analog input measures the AC mains voltage; when it leaves the adjustable thresholds, the device sends alarms over SNMP and by email.
Access and environmental sensors
A magnetic contact on the enclosure door raises an intrusion alarm - flood, smoke or PIR sensors can be summed onto the same digital input - plus a digital temperature sensor with 0.1 °C precision or a combined temperature/humidity sensor, with adjustable value ranges.
Detecting discharged batteries
The RT-1 is powered from an output socket of the local UPS, so it records how long the UPS runs when mains voltage is absent. UPS units with discharged batteries become visible, and the technical department can replace their batteries in time.
Remote control through a relay
A relay-switched 220 V AC socket is operated from the device’s web interface or automatically, on voltage, door or temperature/humidity conditions: enclosure ventilation or heating is automated, and routers can be restarted remotely, without dispatching a technical team.
What we delivered
| Component | Details |
|---|---|
| RT-1 devices | Over 250 units designed and manufactured by Claritech, with Ethernet, a web interface and remote firmware updates |
| Centralized monitoring | InterMapper on a virtualized server in the client’s network, with location states shown on a map of Romania |
| Alarms and escalation | SNMP and email alarms, escalated automatically across support levels - from the network operations engineer to the leads of the local intervention teams |
| History and reports | Events stored in log files, measured values plotted as graphs, custom reports highlighting locations with frequent or long-standing problems |
| Installation | A device designed for simple mounting, carried out by the client’s own teams |
The results
Real-time visibility. The state of power, UPS units and conditions across several hundred technical spaces, on a single map - where before there was no information from the field at all.
Fewer complaints. About a year after the installations were completed, the client’s analysis of complaint tickets showed a strong correlation between the roll-out of the devices and the drop in complaint volume.
Batteries replaced in time. Recording how long each UPS runs without mains highlights discharged batteries, so replacement happens before the next outage.
More efficient interventions and maintenance. Remote equipment restarts eliminate part of the site visits, and automatically escalated notifications reach the right team directly.
Why Claritech
The project is part of the monitoring line from which the Claritech FOCUS platform grew; today it monitors over 2,000 telecom sites and over 100 data-center locations, in 8 countries. See the Claritech FOCUS - centralized monitoring solution →