Re: APC vs TrippLite metered PDU's

[Justin H.]

I haven't had any experience with TrippLite's interface, but I've gotten 
very frustrated with java interfaces lately and avoid them if possible.


APC's web interface is both simple and easy.  I use their switched rack 
PDUs, but I believe the interface is the same for metered. It's simple 
and easy, but has enough features to be generally useful to me.


Justin H.

Ian Mock wrote:

+1 for APC, HTML based GUI, also supports major management protocols. Never had 
a problem with it.

Ian Mock


-Original Message-
From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Aaron C. de Bruyn
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2015 4:43 PM
To: Dovid Bender
Cc: NANOG
Subject: Re: APC vs TrippLite metered PDU's

If I recall correctly, they have an HTML-based GUI.  I rarely use it.  I mainly 
use SSH and SNMP which they support as well.

-A

On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 1:53 PM, Dovid Bender <do...@telecurve.com> wrote:


Hello All,

We currently use TrippLite and over all have been very happy with
their metered PDU's. When we first started out we had some minor
issues and their support went above and beyond. Lately the their Java
web interface has been becoming a real pain. More and more browsers
lock it by default and it takes a lot of work to get it working
correctly. Does anyone have any experience with APC? How are is
management of their devices and over all how do they operate?

TIA.

Dovid

Re: APC vs TrippLite metered PDU's

[Frederik Kriewitz]

Hello Dovid,

we've been using APC devices (including PDUs) for a couple of years.

Occasionally the MGMT cards of the devices stop responding, we had to
manually reset them on site (Reset is possible without affecting the
devices, it won't toggle any relays). This has been a rare event
(~once every 10 years). Overall they are running stable.

You shouldn't expect any long time software/bug fix support either.
E.g. they didn't fix their SSL implementation when the POODLE attack
came up on various slightly older devices (the devices only support
SSLv3 so it's hard to use HTTPS nowadays). On older devices (first
generation) enabling HTTPS will make the interface become really slow
too (apparently due to CPU limitations). On the new MGMT cards (second
generation) they apparently added some crypto hardware offloading
chips to fix that.

Proper HTTPS support is the biggest issue we're still having with
them. In order to enable HTTPS on the webinterface you've to use their
"APC Security Wizard" to generate the key and get the CSR, once you
got it signed you've to use the Wizard again to import the
certificate, then upload the resulting file to the device. The Wizard
is only available for Windows and is a basic GUI application, there's
no easy automation possible. If you have a couple of 100 devices,
renewing certificates for them is a relay annoying task. Their
solution for this is to get a wildcard certificate and use the same
certificate on all devices.

Besides that there's no support for intermediate certificates which in
practice forces you to install any intermediate certificate on your
devices from which you're planning to access the webinterface.
This was first reported in 2007 and is still not fixed:
http://forums.apc.com/spaces/7/ups-management-devices-powerchute-software/forums/general/4567/ssl-intermediate-certificates-on-nmc

If you've a company policy which forces you to use proper
certificates, etc. for the webinterface using APC will be painful.
If you'll use the webinterface rarely and handle the switching, etc.
via SNMP you should be fine.

If you have any probelm try their their forum (Their normal ticketing
system support is really bad).

Best Regards,
Frederik Kriewitz

On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 12:57 AM, Craig Tomkow  wrote:
> APC PDUs have been good.  Their HTTPS interface moves like molasses iirc,
> but as long as you have some SNMP mgmt platform (APC struxureware for us),
> then you are good.

Re: APC vs TrippLite metered PDU's

[Craig Tomkow]

APC PDUs have been good.  Their HTTPS interface moves like molasses iirc,
but as long as you have some SNMP mgmt platform (APC struxureware for us),
then you are good.
On Dec 1, 2015 2:55 PM, "Dovid Bender"  wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> We currently use TrippLite and over all have been very happy with their
> metered PDU's. When we first started out we had some minor issues and their
> support went above and beyond. Lately the their Java web interface has been
> becoming a real pain. More and more browsers lock it by default and it
> takes a lot of work to get it working correctly. Does anyone have any
> experience with APC? How are is management of their devices and over all
> how do they operate?
>
> TIA.
>
> Dovid
>

RE: APC vs TrippLite metered PDU's

[Ian Mock]

+1 for APC, HTML based GUI, also supports major management protocols. Never had 
a problem with it.

Ian Mock


-Original Message-
From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Aaron C. de Bruyn
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2015 4:43 PM
To: Dovid Bender
Cc: NANOG
Subject: Re: APC vs TrippLite metered PDU's

If I recall correctly, they have an HTML-based GUI.  I rarely use it.  I mainly 
use SSH and SNMP which they support as well.

-A

On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 1:53 PM, Dovid Bender <do...@telecurve.com> wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> We currently use TrippLite and over all have been very happy with 
> their metered PDU's. When we first started out we had some minor 
> issues and their support went above and beyond. Lately the their Java 
> web interface has been becoming a real pain. More and more browsers 
> lock it by default and it takes a lot of work to get it working 
> correctly. Does anyone have any experience with APC? How are is 
> management of their devices and over all how do they operate?
>
> TIA.
>
> Dovid
>

Re: APC vs TrippLite metered PDU's

[James Greig]

Raritan and apc pdus are great and do the job.  We use snmp read and writes 
mainly but the web interface is pretty good and no java out plugins needed.

Kind regards

James Greig 

> On 1 Dec 2015, at 21:53, Dovid Bender  wrote:
> 
> Hello All,
> 
> We currently use TrippLite and over all have been very happy with their
> metered PDU's. When we first started out we had some minor issues and their
> support went above and beyond. Lately the their Java web interface has been
> becoming a real pain. More and more browsers lock it by default and it
> takes a lot of work to get it working correctly. Does anyone have any
> experience with APC? How are is management of their devices and over all
> how do they operate?
> 
> TIA.
> 
> Dovid

Re: APC vs TrippLite metered PDU's

[Aaron C. de Bruyn]

If I recall correctly, they have an HTML-based GUI.  I rarely use it.  I
mainly use SSH and SNMP which they support as well.

-A

On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 1:53 PM, Dovid Bender  wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> We currently use TrippLite and over all have been very happy with their
> metered PDU's. When we first started out we had some minor issues and their
> support went above and beyond. Lately the their Java web interface has been
> becoming a real pain. More and more browsers lock it by default and it
> takes a lot of work to get it working correctly. Does anyone have any
> experience with APC? How are is management of their devices and over all
> how do they operate?
>
> TIA.
>
> Dovid
>

Re: APC vs TrippLite metered PDU's

[Scott Larson]

 Just to toss them into the mix as a suggestion to look at, we run
Server Technology PDUs here and really like them, especially the POPS+PIPS
line. As far as infrastructure device web interfaces go theirs is arguably
the best I've used and no Java is involved.


*[image: userimage]Scott Larson[image: los angeles]
Lead
Systems Administrator[image: wdlogo]  [image:
linkedin]  [image: facebook]
 [image: twitter]
 [image: instagram]
T 310 823 8238 x1106
<310%20823%208238%20x1106>  |  M 310 904 8818 <310%20904%208818>*

On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 1:53 PM, Dovid Bender  wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> We currently use TrippLite and over all have been very happy with their
> metered PDU's. When we first started out we had some minor issues and their
> support went above and beyond. Lately the their Java web interface has been
> becoming a real pain. More and more browsers lock it by default and it
> takes a lot of work to get it working correctly. Does anyone have any
> experience with APC? How are is management of their devices and over all
> how do they operate?
>
> TIA.
>
> Dovid
>

Re: APC vs TrippLite metered PDU's

[Louis Kowolowski]

On Dec 1, 2015, at 1:53 PM, Dovid Bender  wrote:
> 
> Hello All,
> 
> We currently use TrippLite and over all have been very happy with their
> metered PDU's. When we first started out we had some minor issues and their
> support went above and beyond. Lately the their Java web interface has been
> becoming a real pain. More and more browsers lock it by default and it
> takes a lot of work to get it working correctly. Does anyone have any
> experience with APC? How are is management of their devices and over all
> how do they operate?
> 
I haven’t used anything in the last couple of years, but historically they 
didn’t require any plugins. They’ve also been wide open, so make sure you run 
around and disable all the usual suspects (telnet, non-https, unencrypted 
snmp). Other than that, I’ve had zero issues with management.

--
Louis Kowolowskilou...@cryptomonkeys.org 

Cryptomonkeys:   http://www.cryptomonkeys.com/ 


Making life more interesting for people since 1977



signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail