We have used APC UPS's, and have not had problems
other than they have about 4-5 year life, but our power
only went down 10x at most, it's possible they may have
lasted longer if they were used more frequently.
The biggest factor in determining whether to buy an
expensive UPS or a cheap UPS and only protect key pieces
is what is your data worth. How much would it cost to
rebuild from backups, to reinstall completely, even if it's
only for one day.
We just purchased a 2200kva UPS for about $850.00
We also run a 3000kva UPS, which was about $1200.00
That's not a lot of money for data protection. We have
our server, our hubs/switches, monitor, tape backup drives
and modems all on the UPS, after all, you need all of
them for your system. Hate to have my backup ruined if
power went off during backup. or Couldn't see what I
was typing at the console (since the rest of the building
would be out and couldn't telnet in), or if I couldn't
remotely call in and shutdown the system.
Make sure you know and overestimate your needs. Then go to
APC website, where they have a chart of Wattage over time
for which units will do the job. Don't just get a UPS that
will barely handle your wattage, as it won't handle it very
long (which might be ok for frequent brown outs), but not
very good if you lost battery power in less than 5 minutes and
can't get enough time to shutdown properly.
APC also comes with powerchute, which I believe will run
under Redhat linux, to triggere a shutdown when the power
is getting low (also comes with the cable).
But, if you want a cheap method to shutdown a machine that
should work ok (although I have not tested it). If you hook
up a cheap piece of equipment with a network interface to
your non-UPS's (but power filtered) power source.
You could have a background job that would ping the equipment,
and if it didn't get a response back, to assume it's on UPS
Now the question is how long do you want no response before
you initiate a shutdown. Say your UPS will hold you good for
20 minutes, it takes 5 minutes for a shutdown, then you would
want to have 15 minutes of no pings before a shutdown, and
if less than 15 minutes elapses and the pings come back, then
cancel the countdown. I say this fairly ok, in the sense that
if you had multiple powerfails over the course of a night, the
battery might not recharge quickly enough to give you the 20 minutes
each time.
Best advice is to use the power chute. I have not tried to interface
it yet with our RH 7.2 system, we used to have Digital Unix, and it
didn't support power chute (at least not the release we were at).
George
>-----Original Message-----
>From: LULANI Olsi [mailto:olulani amc al]
>Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 9:33 AM
>To: enigma-list redhat com
>Subject: RE: advise on UPS for RH7.2
>
>
>Out of my experience APC UPSes are the best. They are quite
>expensive but
>they do provide a good service. If you manage to go to the
>smart versions
>(>/=$600) you get even test functionality for the UPS.
>Another option more
>complicated for software is again APC using apcupsd.
>
> Sincerely
>Mr. Olsi Lulani
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Tyler J. Evans [mailto:te8 axe humboldt edu]
>Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 3:20 PM
>To: enigma-list redhat com
>Subject: advise on UPS for RH7.2
>
>Dear list,
>
>Can anyone recommend UPS device that works well with, and is
>relatively
>easy to configure for a Dell dimension 8200 running redhat 7.2
>as a work
>station. My area has many power outages in the winter.
>
>My initial inquiries into UPS systems give me the impression
>that this is
>non trivial stuff to set up. Is there an "out of the box" UPS
>out there?
>
>Many thanks in advance! Tyler
>
>--
>*******************************************
>Tyler J. Evans
>Assistant Professor
>Department of Mathematics
>Humboldt State University
>(707) 826-3217 -Linux is great!
>*******************************************
>
>
>
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