Reply to: Dopey Fools

[RichardCranium]

A plaster cast only does any good if you set the bone first.

The solution is to provide a solution, not find a way of ignoring the problem.

Was that a Confusian saying? It sounded like one in my head.

Say, NF, may I borrow you for an hour? I want to use you as a verbal club to batter some sense into The Management at ClientCo.

[ctdctd]

So now they have shut down the "Exchange Service", has anyone mentioned that email seems a bit dead?

[NickFitz]

The band aid they applied is to shut down the Exchange Service on the server to reduce power consumption. This will work in the short term but any additional loads placed on the UPS for any reason will tip it over again.

Not to mention scenarios such as Microsoft releasing a security update which causes, say, three different services to all consume slightly more CPU, which then occasionally causes the total load to reach the trigger level again, and they're back where they started.

(There's also the question of why the server was running a service that isn't required - for efficient performance, a server should run only the services it requires to do its job. But that's a different manifestation of numptiness.)

[DaveB]

Not knowing anything about what you're talking about, I'm curious to know, what is the solution then ?

The UPS is at the very limits of it's capacity and minor variations in power consumption from the server, fans running faster or just the CPU pulling more power to run an extra service, are tipping over the edge. When this happens the default action for the UPS is to tell the server to shut down cleanly because the UPS cannot supply sufficient power for reliable operation.

The band aid they applied is to shut down the Exchange Service on the server to reduce power consumption. This will work in the short term but any additional loads placed on the UPS for any reason will tip it over again. On top of that UPS power outputs tend to degrade over time anyway so in 12months it's output may well dip back below the required levels and trigger the problem again.

The proper solution is to buy a new UPS with a larger load capacity.

I suspect the Team Leader involved didn't spec the UPS correctly and can't just order a new one becase then his mistake would be revealed.

[Chugnut]

At a place I worked at many moons ago we had a UPS for the servers. Around th office there were a few red plug sockets which people were told not to use (asking for trouble I know). When we had a power cut the UPS lasted 3 mins due to the load placed on it by fan heaters and kettles.

"Well, without the heat from the servers we'll catch our death, and we can't help fix the power outages without a good brew, can we?"

[BoredBloke]

At a place I worked at many moons ago we had a UPS for the servers. Around th office there were a few red plug sockets which people were told not to use (asking for trouble I know). When we had a power cut the UPS lasted 3 mins due to the load placed on it by fan heaters and kettles.

[Pondlife]

This is easily solved with the std .net solution.

Throw money at it and buy more/bigger/lots of kit.

Where do I send the invoice?

HTH

[Diver]

It's rather like replacing the fuse that keeps blowing in your fusebox with a thick copper bar.

When the proper response is to run an extension lead from next door's external socket

[NotAllThere]

Not knowing anything about what you're talking about,...

It's rather like replacing the fuse that keeps blowing in your fusebox with a thick copper bar.

[oracleslave]

all sounds very technical and geeky to me

Milan.

WHS

[chef]

there there Milan, nobody's complaining about tape changing speeds, it's ok, continue with invoicing

[milanbenes]

all sounds very technical and geeky to me

Milan.

[NickFitz]

Not knowing anything about what you're talking about, I'm curious to know, what is the solution then ?

A plaster cast only does any good if you set the bone first.

The solution is to provide a solution, not find a way of ignoring the problem.

[tim123]

Not knowing anything about what you're talking about, I'm curious to know, what is the solution then ?

I don't know what he's talking about either (in that I can't see what's so bad about the proposed solution - I assume that it will limit some functionality, but then so does the server re-booting every 5 minutes)

But if you do need this exchange server thingy (whatever it may be) I guess the real solution is to spend some money and get a bigger UPS.

tim

[bellymonster]

So you're saying that a lightly loaded server consumes the same amount of power as heavily loaded one?

Interesting!

No, of course I'm not saying that.
But if your UPS falls over because you want to run Exchange dont you think it would be time to buy a bigger UPS.