Creating a new ARM/AVR platform

[Liam Proven]

On 29 February 2012 17:18, Jacob Mansfield <cyberjacob at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The product is designed to monitor the conditions in a server room, and
> report data back to a monitoring server at our HQ. it will also use relays
> to control devices over a proprietary protocol we have developed.

Environmental conditions, or network/traffic conditions, or server
load conditions, or some combination thereof?

As far as environmental and traffic monitoring, I believe a number of
such devices exist.

> The product will be Mains powered.

OK - rack mount or some small device that attaches to the side of a
rack or sits on top or something? Wired into the network backbone, its
own network, wireless, telephone line logging, what?

> Convention and fan-based cooling will be used. the device will always be
> in a climate-controled environment.

I am guessing that if it's monitoring environmental conditions, such
as temperature, then it needs to be able to cope with sudden drastic
rises in temp and so on because that's precisely what it needs to
alert the sysadmins about?

> What software and hardware will you need to accomplish this?
>
> We hope to use linux with our custom-built monitoring software

OK, well, so far, this sounds like something you could just use
ordinary PC Linux on an ultra-small-form-factor PC to do.

Here's such a device that I reviewed a few years ago:
http://www.reghardware.com/2009/05/12/review_desktop_pc_linutop_2/

> The hardware and monitoring system will be proprietary, however the linux
> integration will be released as open source in conjunction with the GNU GPL.

OK. You do need to decide GPL2 or 3, or LGPL, Affero GPL etc.

> We are currently considering using COTS hardware with a cutom-developed
> add-in module for the advanced features.

Does this use a standard interface, such as USB or PCI-E? If so, I
don't think you need to do any custom engineering, porting or
anything.


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