It is nice to be able to see a status of equipment at a glance. A power on light on the power bar, some flashing lights on the router are some things that can be glanced at to ensure everything is operating properly. A server on the other hand is a bit trickier, you might want to see what the load is like on the server, check some ping times, how much space is left etc. Instructables user mkanoap created a system that uses a Stoplight to indicate Server Status, now all he needs to do is have a glance at the huge stoplight in the hall to see how the server is doing.

Via: Hack a Day

“At the place I work, we use xymon to monitor of our servers.  All of the services monitored are important, but we wanted a separate indicator to simply show the overall health of the most critical systems.  Furthermore, we came up with the following criteria:

1. We wanted this visible to everyone whether or not they were near a web browser or even a monitor.
2. We wanted it to preserve the “red/yellow/green” status’s xymon uses.
3. We wanted it to be stand alone, not requiring a separate computer (we already have one running a widescreen monitor elsewhere for that).
4. We wanted it to look good and be fun.”