We have APC units at our remote sites (about 140 separate locations) powering 1 server each. We have the central APC Management appliance which collects all the data from the remote UPSs. It works, but we aren't big fans of APC warranty support. When we have had problems with a UPS we call for warranty service and are told they want us in front of the UPS - even though we have all the remote tools. One reason we have the remote monitoring tools is that these things are often in buildings where we don't have people very often and it can take a few days before we can arrange a time where a tech can be at the site for more than 10 minutes.
APC doesn't keep track of stuff by serial number and you can't pull the model number or the serial number from the remote management tools (unless you manually put it in). They don't track the ChargeUPS (new battery and warranty extension) properly so we always have to prove all over again that we have a warranty on the unit. Some of the support problems have been resolved (at least for us) because our VAR screamed at APC until they gave us direct numbers of people in the support organization who were able to help us. We haven't found a better solution for our remote sites, but thought I'd share some of our experiences. -Brian -----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 10:57 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: UPS recommendations Hi all, We had a power outage today. I looked over at the server rack just in time to see one of the UPSes light up like a Christmas tree, shriek like an injured parakeet, and then kill itself. (Admitted it was old, but a graceful failure this was not.) The servers with redundant supplies failed over to the other UPS, which promptly went into over-current alarm and dropped the load. Either said UPS's management software has been grossly misreporting its load, or two UPSes at 40% load doesn't include enough margin during transfer. Any which way you slice it, it's time to buy some new UPSes. I'm going to ask for two entirely new 1400 or 2200 VA units (existing were 1000 VA), although budget may be an issue. What do people like for UPSes, *and why*? I don't see much variation across manufactures in a given price band. At a given dollar amount, it seems I get roughly the same capacity, features, etc. I'm thinking differences in management software and quality of support don't show up in a spec sheet. Comments on that front are especially welcomed. In particular, I'm interested in how to manage a multiple-server, multiple-UPS scenario. Our two biggest servers have redundant supplies. I'd like to plug each supply into a different UPS. So each UPS will be powering multiple servers, and each server will be drawing power from multiple UPSes. I imagine that makes the management software configuration a bit trickier, specially since a lot of management packages used to assume one-UPS-per-server. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
