UPS sharing

  • Thread starter Thread starter Shaik
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Shaik

I have 3 Servers running on a 1 KVA online MGE UPS, the problem is that I
can connect only 1 Server with the UPS through its USB...and the other two
Servers then on the risk of electricity failure. SNMP is best solution I
think but its too costly for me, so please advise the cheaper one. :)
 
From: "Shaik" <[email protected]>

| I have 3 Servers running on a 1 KVA online MGE UPS, the problem is that I
| can connect only 1 Server with the UPS through its USB...and the other two
| Servers then on the risk of electricity failure. SNMP is best solution I
| think but its too costly for me, so please advise the cheaper one. :)
|

That's only .333 KVA per server. That isn't much breathing room nor will it allow much time
per server.

You should have one 1.0 KVA UPS per server each with its own umbilical chord to its
respective server. The other option is a 3.0 KVA UPS using RS232 and get a UPS sharing
unit. This is what I did through various APC hardware and software.

This is NOT the place to be cheap.
 
Shaik said:
I have 3 Servers running on a 1 KVA online MGE UPS, the problem is that I
can connect only 1 Server with the UPS through its USB...and the other two
Servers then on the risk of electricity failure. SNMP is best solution I
think but its too costly for me, so please advise the cheaper one. :)
Click to expand...


1 kVA for *three* hosts (regardless of whether they are servers or
workstations)? Sounds way too light unless all you want to ensure is enough
time for the servers to properly shutdown after a very short "holding"
interval (i.e., the UPS is only used to provide outage protection for a few
minutes afterwhich they must provide enough power to ensure the servers can
shutdown properly).

Why would the USB restrict which hosts can connect to the power outlets on
the UPS? Yeah, only one would have a communications connection but that
doesn't prevent connecting multiple hosts to the outlets on the same UPS.

Doesn't the UPS come with "server" software and "clients"? That is, isn't
there a server program for the UPS monitoring that you could install on one
host which uses USB to communicate to the UPS that could use the network to
communicate with "client" programs for UPS monitoring on the other hosts (to
have those clients execute a shutdown of those other non-directly connected
hosts)? According to their manual at
http://www.mgeups.com/download/soft/explore/eng/ptp/ptp_sol.htm?os=WIN:

"The PSP software ensures that all computers are correctly shutdown."

"All" implies more than *one* computer can be shutdown. Broadcasting is
also mentioned. Why would you need to broadcast anything unless it was to
alert the client program on other hosts that it should perform a shutdown?
Obviously you would need a LAN connection between the hosts so the client
could receive the broadcasted message. My guess is that install their
software on each host (but only include the USB support on the one host
which connects to the UPS). It may very well be that this product, and
especially its software, is designed to only support a single-host setup,
and that some other product of theirs supports a multiple-host setup but you
didn't get that product.

You might want to check at http://www.mgeups.com/ to ask their support how
to get multiple hosts connected to one UPS to concurrently execute a
shutdown during an outage although only one of the hosts can be connected
directly using the USB interface to the UPS.
 
Most UPS software I have used will allow you to execute a batch file before
shutting down the local machine. If yours will allow you to do this, create
a batch file that performs a remote shutdown on the remaining two machines
and execute this before the machine that is connected to the UPS's USB port
shuts down it's self.

Alistair
 
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