Power and so much more

NetBrowser, a start-up offering power and virtual presence monitoring, presented its e-Guardian facility monitoring solution to an enthusiastic crowd at the 41st annual Marconi Power Conference in Cleveland this past May.

According to Jonathan Buckley, NetBrowser's vice president of business development, the solution features "virtual machine" technology, a line of software that behaves like a machine. Sitting on top of any hardware platform, the virtual machine plugs into a power system-or any other of a number of devices, for that matter-via a serial port.

Using an Ethernet connection, the e-Guardian then contacts a Web site operated by NetBrowser and downloads the language used by the machine to which it is attached, allowing it to tap directly "into the mind of the machine" and garner in-depth information on the machine's performance and status. The solution does all this while operating behind the firewall, eliminating polling-based monitoring systems that use the WAN.

The fact that e-Guardian sits behind the firewall is one of the solution's more attractive features said David Essi, director of product management for Marconi's DC power group, which has conducted joint sales pitches with NetBrowser in the past.

"It can sit quite politely on a customer's Ethernet network without hogging up a lot of the bandwidth and it can get out through their firewall and be upgraded easily," he said.

The information gathered by the product then is sent to a Web server, which collects information for all of the network elements served by e-Guardian.
With a simple Web browser, network operators can then set alarm points and monitor the power performance of the machine without any extra software from a PC or even a wireless device.

Beyond power monitoring, e-Guardian can also hook up to systems such as climate control, fire and security systems, notifying the network operator when specific parameters are violated such as a rising temperature or motion in a CO during off hours.

This feature, said Buckley, allows network operators to create a "virtual presence" in a central office. "We wanted to devise a network management system for facilities infrastructure," he said.