powercut every night what can i do

[round2it]

we have been having multiple powercuts each night at the school.

 

we do have ups but they dont last long enough.

 

reported to building owner

 

no issues during the day full load on the power system.

 

what would you ask the building owner to do to protect the servers.

 

hire bigger ups.

genorator

 

what would be resonable to ask for

[MatthewL]

Is just isolated to one area of multiple. Have you spoken to power company?

[round2it]

building owner is at the moment.

last time we had this the school had to have a huge genorator outside the building.

would i be within my rights to ask for a huge ups.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

sorry its the entire site

[Wubbalubbadub]

I'd be tempted to shutdown the servers at the end of the day... Until it's resolved. Unless you have apps you critically need up for the evenings/night?

[ricki]

Fit cabinet ups on servers they are huge. But shutting them down is a good option Richard

[twin--turbo]

If its only the building then lay out the risk to the building owner that the issue could lead to hardware and or data destruction. You need them to supply a gennerator.

 

If it's the power company then you need to hire a generator. But you need to make sure the UPS is up to the smoothing of the supply.

 

Was not too much last time I hired one for a few days.

[Grey-gear]

+1 for getting a ups but the cheaper option would be to shut the servers down if this is everyday.

[RichCowell]

Do you mean the UPS's aren't lasting long enough to keep the servers running during the power cuts, or they're not lasting long enough to shut the servers down cleanly?

 

If it's the latter, I'd just get new batteries for them as it shouldn't take long to shut them down... if it's the former, depending on the spec of the UPS's - they're not designed to do that, so I wouldn't ever rely on them to keep the servers running during power cuts, so it's worth configuring them to shut the servers down on loss of power... We've had major issues with power cuts over the last few years, with it going off more than I could hazard a guess at... they did ruin the battery in one of our UPS's, but I replaced it and it was fine to shut them down again afterwards...

Edited January 14, 2016 by RichCowell

[elsiegee40]

We had a problem with nightly power cuts at the rural primary school I used to work at. It turned out to be a problem in the milking parlour at a nearby farm that was causing a spike and tripping oit the school's power. It took months to diagnose by the electricity board and then only when we were able to tell them the exact time it was happening every day without fail.

 

A UPS is intended only to ride servers through a short power outage or shut the servers down. Otherwise they're there to keep power up until a generator cuts in. It's not intended to keep the servers going for hours on end.

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

If you are having so many power issues I would be more inclined to power off the servers and potentially disconnect the mains supply. My main worry would be that two many shocks will kill something in the system. Is there any one else local that is having power issues as well?

[round2it]

the power cuts are hours (well until some one comes and throws a switch at the substation)

 

so the ups die

[RichCowell]

the power cuts are hours (well until some one comes and throws a switch at the substation)

 

so the ups die

 

They'll never cope with hours... They're only designed to last a short amount of time, certainly not even one hour when they're loaded with servers... I'd definitely get them configured to shut everything down cleanly...

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

If they are hours, shutting the servers down would be the best solution. UPS are designed to act as a short term temporary power supply to either shut the servers down or to provide power till a gen set kicks in.

[elsiegee40]

I agree. Get the UPS to shut down tidily. The electricity board might be persuaded to provide a generator if it is happening every night, but don't bank on it.

 

If it is happening everynight, I'd schedule a shut down. Are the backups managing to complete before you lose power?

[MrPstv]

Check the logs of the UPS server software, you should get some indication of the times they are shutting down or/if any surges are being recorded,if the times are roughly the same for the first shutdown at least you have some information to hand over to your electricity supplier.

I am sure they can fit some equipment to monitor from the sub station..

 

Always good to get as much information as you can in the form of logs etc..

[mikkydoos]

We get that. Its a major pain in the butt.

 

My UPS's handle it ok most of the time though.

[dapaulio]

I would ask the power company and the maintenance manager to investigate as a matter of urgency. Sounds as though you have provided sufficient protection to the school network as you can. Unfortunately there is not alot that can be done if there is no electric. And feel that the problems experiwnce are beyond the scope for ict They need to find out what is causing the power cut and resolve it as one day you may come in to find switches and server won't power back on. Although ups offer a line of defence against power spikes if the ups fails then your hardware connected will take the hit

[round2it]

this is an absolute pain.

 

can anyone recommend a solution for a server room that can be rented