UPS Requirement

[GRitchie]

Hello,

So I'm doing my budget plan and our current UPS is complete garbage and lasts about 30 seconds (if that) so I've put down that we need to replace this. I estimated around £1k from a couple of quotes on our total load.

However the HT is questioning the need for it. His argument is that it's not going to be any use if half of the time the power failures are in the night as nobody will be here to shut the servers down safely anyway.

 

What do you think to this? How could I reason enough for the fact that 'what if it goes down during school hours?' 'what if the outage is 5 minutes?' etc etc

 

Never really been in the position where the need for UPS has been questioned?(!)

[Jawloms]

half of the time the power failures are in the night as nobody will be here to shut the servers down safely anyway.

 

That's irrelevant as the UPS should come with software which will safely shutdown the servers for just such a situation. It also saves you a load of headache if the power cut lasts five minutes. Sounds like the head needs to do his job and let you do yours. If only we could get away with saying things like that to them eh?

[bwestlake]

most ups' come with software that automatically shutdown servers once it drops below a certain battery level

[steveg]

The UPS itself will shut the server down, there should be no need for someone to be around. A server is much more likely to come back up after a power cut if it has been shut down properly and not just had its power cut! Also of all the power cuts we've had over the last few years here, and there haven't been that many, they have all lasted less than 3 minutes.

 

Steve

[DavePa]

Agree with all of the comments above. Also, a line-interactive (?) UPS is also a line conditioner as well so protects against fluctuations in the power supply and ensures that what is plugged in receives only filtered power.

[dry]

+1 to all of the above. A capable UPS is an essential piece of server room hardware. They've saved us on more than one occasion (ancient electrics in a v. old school building).

 

The business case would be that it's cheaper to buy an maintain a capable UPS instead of the potential hardware repairs should you not have a UPS and suffer a power surge or loss.

[Jawloms]

It's not just the cost of hardware repairs of fried kit, it's also the downtime for teachers and students, and the (wo)man hours of rebuilding and restoring a server which has had an improper shutdown and killed the RAID/OS/whatever. I think the real discussion should be how many UPSs do you want? We have dual power supplies on all our servers and two UPSs. Each server is then fed from both UPSs and each UPS is powered from a different electrical circuit. I believe this is fairly standard?

[GRitchie]

Right, so if I were to say for a bare minimum to have UPS on my 2 virtual hosts and 1 physical DC (couple of other physical servers, but they're not that important)

How much approximately could I say it would cost? Got a meeting with him in 5!

[Achandler]

Mine cost me abotu £1k each last time I bought them (about 12 months ago) and I run 4 physical servers/ SANs on each (+important switches for iSCSI), I get about 20-30 minutes. Its been tested by electricians (not deliberately, they just turned the circuit off without telling me!)

[howartp]

VERY quick calculation using APC's UPS selector with guesstimate of your server specs is just short of 1,000 va per host.

 

There's a 2500 va UPS for £900 ex VAT on scan.co.uk so just over £1,000 sounds about the right price range for a VERY quick guesstimate.

 

I'd push for £1,500 or £2,000 if you can, to give you breathing room.

[GRitchie]

Okay, I'll try and get some more prices today but I gave the estimate of around £1k/£1.5k

He seemed a bit more open to the idea when I threw out the worst case scenarios! (Funny how that sometimes works.)

 

If I were to have it working for the core essentials, would I also need to put the core switch on it? I imagine they send the shutdown command over LAN, so it would all need to talk somehow?

 

But then for things like sending email notifications, I'd then need our router uplink on it etc.?

 

 

I've never really implemented this before, more just 'watched it work'

[howartp]

It depends on the UPS - I think most are USB into one host, which has the software running, which then deals with the servers over the LAN.

 

Until last year, we just had our server cab (which includes local mini-core switch) on the UPS.

 

When we put in our new UPS's (x2) we put the whole server room on them (some on one, some on both) so the internet router, firewall, mini-core switch, actual-core switch and servers are all powered up. Before anything starts shutting down after x minutes, it sends the email alerts, then (if power still off) shuts off internet and LAN cab first, to keep servers up longer, then progressively shuts other stuff down.

 

Peter

[ITGURU]

It's not just the cost of hardware repairs of fried kit, it's also the downtime for teachers and students, and the (wo)man hours of rebuilding and restoring a server which has had an improper shutdown and killed the RAID/OS/whatever. I think the real discussion should be how many UPSs do you want? We have dual power supplies on all our servers and two UPSs. Each server is then fed from both UPSs and each UPS is powered from a different electrical circuit. I believe this is fairly standard?

 

All our Servers have Dual PSU - One is connected to the UPS, the other direct to mains - PSUs set as load balancing.

 

Both UPS and Mains connections are fed from different Distribution boards.

[Oaktech]

To be accurate we would need to know what your load is - the APC configurator is really handy.

 

I've just bought a 3kva to hold up 2 servers, a storage enclosure and a switch. APC/Liebert/Emerson all came in around the £2k mark because I wanted a network SNMP card. I ended buying a PowerTecnique iCentor for £1100. I'd strongly recommend them.

 

Push for at least £2k.

[DSapseid]

Ive got a big 15000va APC UPS that is connected by one those big blue power connectors. It powers my 8 servers, mac mini server, SAN, HP5412 core switch, router and 2 nvrs for cctv. The screen on the front says it will hold power for about 30mins at the minute. The ups powers 4 pdu bars and all the servers/switches have the power split across 2+ pdu bars (2 server racks side by side, one servers, one communications, 2 pdu bars in each).

 

Ok it was £5-6k but we were having lots of power problems at the time and the business manager was happy to invest as part of a complete new server room install (new racks, switches, servers, san).

 

Also just take delivery of 8 apc ups for the cabinets to power the switches as we are having lots of power work done over the summer.

[GRitchie]

Okay, so. I want it to be able to support my primary servers, email me if it kicks in, and shut them down if need be.

 

I have 2 x HP Proliant ML310e Gen8 V2 servers, 1 x Fujitsu Primergy TX140 S1.

They're my main servers.

 

Then, I have a HP 2530-48G Edge switch, which currently is acting as a core. (I hope to be replacing this in Summer with a 'real' HP core switch though, with 2x24 copper modules and 1x24 port SFP modules)

Then, for it to be able to email out (by this time we should be on 365 not the internal Exchange) I will need my Juniper SRX100 router from my ISP and the Smoothwall S4 (as this is where the SRX connects to, not the core).

 

Does that sound about right for what I'd need on it?

The APC configuration tool doesn't have all of these products, so how would I easily work out the load?

Wouldn't need to last forever, I was thinking like 15/30 minutes I guess - that would keep it cheaper, wouldn't it?

[mikkydoos]

Your justification to the HT is:

 

"Dodgy power can and will damage sensitive electronics like a server. The UPS is there to absorb damaging power spikes and troughs and to prevent permanent physical damage, failure or outage of your system. If you want a stable system, invest in it."

 

 

(IMO)

 

 

You can get a minimum of 2500VA with 8 power outlets for about a grand. APC are good but a bit pricey.

 

BTW, to power down multiple severs, you're probably going to need one with a network card, unless you're replying on the one of the servers to send the shutdown signal to the rest.

 

 

Check this one out - http://www.ebuyer.com/167438-cyberpower-professional-rackmount-2200va-lcd-ups-pr2200elcdrt2u

 

NIC optional.

Edited May 10, 2016 by mikkydoos

[GRitchie]

For the kit I've got - would I need two or three of those? Or would one suffice?

[mikkydoos]

For the kit I've got - would I need two or three of those? Or would one suffice?

 

How many devices do you want to keep powered on when the power goes ?

 

That one will do 8. Your load is minimal. 3 servers an a couple of switches by what you said. That would run 45 mins I'd say.

 

VA is for total load - the heavier the load the more VA you need. The rest is up to the batteries.

[GRitchie]

Yeah, it will just be the devices above. So in total it's 6 devices.

 

If we purchased 2, I could end put more on them I suppose, or balance the two main servers across two different UPS?

 

 

Will this (what you've linked) allow me to perform automated shutdown/email notifications?

[mikkydoos]

Yeah, it will just be the devices above. So in total it's 6 devices.

 

If we purchased 2, I could end put more on them I suppose, or balance the two main servers across two different UPS?

 

 

Will this (what you've linked) allow me to perform automated shutdown/email notifications?

 

Well I would assume so. That one is only a cheap suggestion. I don't know if they are any good or how easy spares are to get hold of etc etc.

 

You need to research some to meet your own requirements. Just get one that exceeds the total wattage of all your equipment per UPS.

 

All UPS's come with software so I suggest getting hold of trials and looking at what they can do.

 

 

If you want a UPS to shutdown more than a couple of machines then you need an optional network card - all makes are like this unless u spend megabucks and have one integrated.

 

Your options for shutting down multiple servers is:

 

Scenario 1 - No network card: UPS connected via serial/usb to a server. That server has the UPS server software on it. UPS notifies that server to send the shutdown signal to the other machines (agents)

 

Scenario 2 - with network card: UPS sends the shutdown signal to all machines via SNMP or HTTP.

 

 

Allow for expansion too.

Edited May 10, 2016 by mikkydoos