UPS

[doodab]

laptops are fine but the adsl & switches should be on UPS as well. Dropouts on my router were a daily event before I fitted a UPS to everything.

I can live without the network TBH. I'd need another UPS for the router and fibre modem as it's on a whole different floor than the office as well.

 

[craig1]

If you buy a UPS, don't forget to occasionally check the thing as even the best of them have an annoying habit of the battery degrading or outright dying and not bothering to tell you, either that or it deciding that it doesn't want to cut in properly.

I saw this spectacularly happen during a power test at a moderately large datacentre, the test was focussed around the generators really with the idea being that power is cut, large scale UPS kicks in immediately and then the generators fire up, if the gennies didn't work properly then power would be restored before the UPS ran out of power. What really happened was power was cut, UPS decided not to bother cutting in and the datacentre died a very sudden death. What made it even more amusing was that it happened at midday because it's "cheaper" to test during the day than at night when user counts are low. A fun afternoon of shouty people failing to realise that shouting at server techies won't make the servers come back online any quicker, especially when the network config seemed to have lots of "undocumented features" that made recovery fun.

 

[doodab]

If you buy a UPS, don't forget to occasionally check the thing as even the best of them have an annoying habit of the battery degrading or outright dying and not bothering to tell you, either that or it deciding that it doesn't want to cut in properly.

I saw this spectacularly happen during a power test at a moderately large datacentre, the test was focussed around the generators really with the idea being that power is cut, large scale UPS kicks in immediately and then the generators fire up, if the gennies didn't work properly then power would be restored before the UPS ran out of power. What really happened was power was cut, UPS decided not to bother cutting in and the datacentre died a very sudden death. What made it even more amusing was that it happened at midday because it's "cheaper" to test during the day than at night when user counts are low. A fun afternoon of shouty people failing to realise that shouting at server techies won't make the servers come back online any quicker, especially when the network config seemed to have lots of "undocumented features" that made recovery fun.

We used to do this regularly at each telephone exchange I monitored back in the days when I worked in the NOC for a large telco, but due to different levels of redundancy tolerance we usually had redundant UPS units so we never suffered that sort of outage.

 

[craig1]

We used to do this regularly at each telephone exchange I monitored back in the days when I worked in the NOC for a large telco, but due to different levels of redundancy tolerance we usually had redundant UPS units so we never suffered that sort of outage.

That incident I mentioned happened at a large telco's hosted DC. It was supposed to have redundant UPS units and this is why no-one bothered thinking about what would happen if you just flicked the power switch, the assumption, flawed as it proved to be, was that the UPS would just work.

 

[doodab]

laptops are fine but the adsl & switches should be on UPS as well. Dropouts on my router were a daily event before I fitted a UPS to everything.

APC are market leader in volume mainly at the bottom end.

Chloride, Eaton & Emerson are considered the go to guys for larger installs. But they all do smaller units and some are bargains as they are competing with APC.

have a look at this for an overview of types.

Part 5

Your UPS if it has communication should come with software to shutdown most OSs. Some manufacturers charge extra so watch out.

Chloride and Emerson seem to be the same company now, their low end products are branded Liebert as far as I can make out. I've seen those and the Eaton ones. Might be time for a comparison spreadsheet....

 

[doodab]

That incident I mentioned happened at a large telco's hosted DC. It was supposed to have redundant UPS units and this is why no-one bothered thinking about what would happen if you just flicked the power switch, the assumption, flawed as it proved to be, was that the UPS would just work.

There is something of a difference between a datacentre and a telephone exchange, even in a Telco. I believe (based on how it was explained to me at the time) that the redundancy level and regular testing required for telephone exchanges is mandated by law or at least the regulator as part of the license, because stuff like 999 calls depends on the telephone network working and you can't just leave 90,000 people without a working phone without getting into a spot of trouble.

Perhaps that just means telecoms engineers are better educated that IT folk when it comes to checking things are going to work before flipping the switch.

 

[hyperD]

The APC Smart UPS I have does a weekly test and also indicates end of battery life. It can also connect via USB to a workstation for diagnostics etc. Never had a single instant of a problem with it kicking in when the power drops off for over 10 years. This is a home business setup, not a commercial web farm. Would recommend switches, router et al to be on the bus as well.

 

[doodab]

Would recommend switches, router et al to be on the bus as well.

There is zero benefit to that for me, all I would lose is the ability to post on CUK and read my email on the desktop and I can live without that for days. I might even do some work

OK, I suppose I'd lose the terminator but that hasn't been booted for months anyway.

 

[doodab]

Having thought about it a bit more I think I'll probably give it a miss. It seems pointless to spend £100 on something that will allow me to switch my computer off and read a book when I can already do that for nothing and I'd rather spend £300 on something a bit more exciting. It's not like I work full time anyway so I can easily catch up on things if the power does go out.

 

[TheFaQQer]

The only danger that I think I might need to consider a UPS for is if the disk is doing something sensitive and the power goes. Was it owly the other day who said that he knocked the power lead out and it knackered the drive?