What are Telemetry Units?

Telemetry units are devices that remotely monitor critical network equipment and conditions. These units provide better visibility over your entire network by monitoring important equipment, data transports, and environmental conditions. Proactive network monitoring is an easy way to prevent many kinds of outages from affecting service to your customers.

These telemetry units are commonly referred to as RTUs (remote telemetry units) and are the foundation for a capable and effective remote monitoring system. These units are responsible for collecting alarms from your sites to send you notifications that help prevent downtime.

A good remote telemetry unit will allow you to easily monitor critical gear and conditions across your network.

The Basic Features of Telemetry Units

You need to look for some basic features when choosing remote telemetry units. Choosing the wrong monitoring system can come with some pretty serious consequences - you could be stuck with limited capacity, a hard-to-manage interface, or a system that just doesn't work for your network. Here are some of the most basic features:

• Discrete Alarms - These alarms provide a dry contact closure that latches or releases depending on the state of an alarm point. In other words, it provides binary or digital ("on" or "off") information about the specific input. Discrete inputs are great for monitoring data transports, telco gear, tower lights, doors, etc.
• Analog Alarms - Where discrete alarms lack, analog inputs compensate. The main disadvantage of only having discrete inputs is attempting to monitor values that aren't properly represented by "on" or "off" information. An analog alarm presents a live value for the alarm point. This extra detail is key when monitoring conditions like temperature or voltage.
• Ping Alarms - A monitoring system with ping targets gives you extra control to "ping" the status of any piece of network equipment. This feature is a great tool for determining if critical equipment is transmitting data. It's easy to detect communication failures by pinging your important devices.
• Control Relays - The ability to remotely adjust the on-off status of equipment is a huge time and money saver. Instead of driving way out to a remote site when a piece of equipment jams up, you can click a button to latch a relay. This instantly lets you cycle power from a distance - meaning no more wasteful truck rolls just to reboot equipment.
• Terminal Server Ports - Do you need access to legacy serial devices at your site? In order to maintain visibility over serial devices, it's important to have telemetry units with terminal server ports. These ports will allow staff to quickly repair network equipment without being physically present at your site. This, combined with control relays, can save you on expensive windshield time and maximize your reliability.

Telemetry Units for Superior Monitoring

The NetGuardian family of telemetry units has the capability of monitoring many kinds of devices and environmental conditions. These devices combine the basic features listed above with advanced features (like an intuitive web interface, detailed 24/7 notifications, etc.) for a robust and effective monitoring system.

NetGuardian remote telemetry units are a vast improvement over other devices. Some examples of our telemetry devices are:

• NetGuardian LT G2
• NetGuardian 216 G3
• NetGuardian 832A G5

Related Topic: Telemetry Sensors