We do not use UPSes generally. Everyone’s situation is different. Our electricity is very stable, and, for us, the UPSes cause more prolonged outages than the actual electrical outages. So if a UPS is used (optional), the connected device must be either dual power supplied (with one bypassing the UPS) or an Automatic Transfer Switch must be included so there is a bypass around the UPS. Yes, we’ve tried multiple brands of UPSes. If our electricity were not stable, I might have a different approach. We see UPSes mostly at remote sites where power is not stable.
Our university is mostly VoIP, but life-safety phones are on an analog plant. The hubs of that analog plant have battery and emergency power, so that operations can be sustained indefinitely in event of a primary electrical outage, or 6-8 ours for complete electrical outage (five locations instead of 1,300 for UPSes on network equipment). Far more time than is typically provided with UPSes, and more support of emergency situations. Our university is fortunate to have a larger copper plant from earlier years which we reused. Remote sites of course don’t participate in that plant, and either have analog service from the local carrier, or, an analog gateway and network path with backup power depending on quantities/economics of the site. I would have to run the numbers, but expect we’d have gateways per building before providing backup for all network switches if we did not have that copper plant. [note, we don’t provide service to residence halls, those phones were removed years ago except for several employees where they are analog] Other changing factors. Many servers have moved to our Data Center, so there is less need for network when power goes in the buildings. And the obvious 9X% have cell phones. -- William C. Green e-mail: gr...@austin.utexas.edu<mailto:gr...@austin.utexas.edu> Director, Networking and Telecommunications phone: +1 512-475-9295 ITS (Information Technology Services) fax: +1 512-471-2449 University of Texas 1 University Station Stop C3800 Austin, TX 78712 ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/discuss.
