Ages ago, DataProbe sent me an iBootBar rack power monitor/controller for evaluation. It sat idle for want of a rack to call home, but as soon as the XRackPro2 arrived, the iBootBar was the first device in the enclosure. The configuration of iBootBar that I use controls the power to eight outlets, singly or in user-defined groups. You give each outlet or group a name, and then you can control the outlets or list their power status using any of iBootBar's included Telnet, Web, serial, and modem management interfaces, all of which are constantly and simultaneously active. iBootBar can cycle power to force a server to do a full reset and perform user-defined power sequencing. It can also monitor network devices with auto-ping and cycle their power if they fail to respond, acting as an external watchdog.

The more I work with iBootBar, the more applications I find for it. For one, iBootBar measures the power draw, in Amperes, for each group of four outlets. This allows for relatively precise remote power monitoring, which includes notification thresholds if the power falls below or exceeds a set level. iBootBar handles physical security by allowing me to cut power to the KVM switch, which is locked inside the XRackPro2 cabinet. I can fail-over the Xserve to one of the 16-core servers with neither machine's involvement, and if I'm under attack, as I was recently, I can kill the Internet router and work safely via the LAN.

I haven't hit perfection yet. There are a couple of things that iBootBar doesn't do that would raise its usefulness to a higher level. One would be to make iBootBar able to issue LAN wakeup packets ("magic" packets) to devices that are not set to turn on when AC power is restored. Another would be basic scripting. But these are small issues, considering how much noise and wasted power I was dealing with before the combination of XRackPro2 and iBootBar entered the picture. Now my ears can be where my servers are, and when we're apart, iBootBar gives me remote monitoring and control of the entire rack.