Power and cooling continue to be big issues as systems become smaller and more powerful, so I’d guess that most data center managers are looking for easy, effective ways to keep tabs on power demands and cooling needs.

Emerson Network Power says it has a product that will help companies do that. The company introduced the Liebert vEM-14 last week.

The nice thing about the vEM-14 is that it is a network-enabled device, which means that systems can be remotely monitored from any Web-enabled computer. The other nice thing is that the device combines environmental monitoring with power management so users can prevent overheating and power overload with just one piece of hardware. The vEM-14 gives users a comprehensive view of the conditions within a rack. It monitors environmental conditions such as heat and humidity and it also provides power management capabilities.

The 1U vEM-14 has four sensors inputs, as well as built-in temperature and humidity sensors, 10 dry-contact points and two serial ports to manage power strips. Users can set acceptable levels of power usage and heat output, for example, and then set paging or e-mail notifications based on different levels of seriousness when those levels are exceeded from high critical to low critical.

The device can send data to Liebert Nform monitoring software or to other network management systems using SNMP.

Get more details on the vEM-14 here. And let me know how you keep tabs on environmental conditions and power usage in your data center.