Assistance needed to configure gracefull shutdow of windows servers,,,E

[Anonymous user]

Hi all,

We need some help here, trying to achieve the follow goal.

Here is what we have:
We have 1 * SMT1500 and 1 * SMT3000 each equipped with a NMC. Connected to each UPS, we have 3 windows server (1 PSU only) - a total of 6 servers.


On each Windows server, we have installed PCNS 2.24 and they all have registered themselves with the NMC, as they are in the clientlist on their respective UPS. Firewalls have been disabled on each windows server, and all servers are on same network - both physical and ip.



Here is what we want:
As the loads are not that high on both UPS, we would like to accomplish the following.


After 10 min. of power failure, we would like to initiate a gracefull shutdown of all servers.
Then after another 15 min we would like the UPS to turn off (a couple of the servers (Exchange and SQL) take about 10 min. to shutown, and we would like to add a 5 min. safetymargin to this).



So far, all we have achieved is to shutdown the UPS after a 10 min dalay, but without any gracefull shutdown of the servers. It seems the shutdown (on battery) signal, is never sent to the servers?


Below I have attached a few screenshots of our configs.



I hope someone can help us by indicating which parameters we need to configure to achive the above described goal? I have done quite a few searches in these forums, but even though I have read a lot of posts, I dont seem to be able to get on top of this issue..



Cheers,
Henrik Holm Nielsen

[BillP]

hi henrik,

let me see if i can point you in the right direction.

1.) the low battery duration on the NMC is the amount of runtime left where the UPS will signal that it has a low battery. so, you set it to 10 minutes. this means that if anything is still turned on and hasnt started to gracefully shutdown, when 10 minutes is left, it will start t. this is sort of a fail safe so that if you don't configure PCNS in any special way, it should always start to shutdown at this point.

2.) is there a reason you configured both battery discharged and UPS on battery events? in your attachment PCNS-Event_Config.jpg, what event did you click on to get to this screen to have it shutdown after 5 seconds?

3.) here is what it sounds like we need to do. configure all of the servers for the UPS: On battery event to shutdown after the event lasts for 600 seconds (10 minutes you mentioned). this should start the graceful shutdown on all servers. you need to UNCHECK the setting Turn off the UPS after the shutdown finishes (Not applicable to Parallel Silcon UPS, Smart-UPS VT or Galaxy). under Configure Shutdown on the left hand side EXCEPT on the last server that will be shutting down so that it will tell the UPS to turn off after it is done shutting down. you might want to add a command file delay under configure shutdown for the extra 5 minutes or uncheck the "Turn off the UPS.." setting on all servers that I just mentioned, instead of leaving it checked on the last server, and then just adjust the low battery duration accordingly so that the UPS runs for another 5-10 minutes. this might need to be tested though because when servers shutdown, then the available runtime will change (rise) on the UPS with a smaller load. just so you know, in the PCNS help file, there is a timeline of the shutdown so PCNS does factor in some delays for unforeseen circumstances so i dont know if you still want/need to do this.

4.) this is all assuming you have enough runtime - but, what is your total on battery runtime on your UPSs?

i hope that this helps you or at least gets us started in the right direction.

[Anonymous user]

Sure - I'll report back when I have had the chance to test in our next servicewindow monday next week 🙂

Cheers,
Henrik 🙂

[Anonymous user]

Hi Angela,

Many thanks for taking the time to deal with my questions here!

Ad 1. If I have understood this corrrecly, setting "Low battery duration" to 10 min. then means the UPS will signal clients to initiate gracefull shutdown (if they have not already been shutdown), when the UPS have 10 min of power left on battery? As opposed to send the signal after 10 min. on battery....

Ad. 2. The reason for this is that we've been fumbling around, and tried multiple events to achieve our goal. I now understand, that the only event interesting for us, will be the "UPS On battery" event... The event clicked here when producing the screenshot, was "Battery discharged"...

Ad. 3. We'll try to setup as described by you. But one question though - if power comes back to the UPS within the 10 min. countdown set on the event in PCNS for the gracefull shutdown, will the shutdown then be cancelled if the 10 min. have not been reached yet? Also - I'll check the timeline described in the helpfile in PCNS.

Ad. 4. According to the LCD on the UPS, we have about 1 hour battery time with the current load. I guess we could go higher on the time before shutting down the servers, but I also know that we will have a few more units/servers attached within the next few months, and recogned I would save my self the reconfig on the values when those had been attached...

Thanx for you help so far 😉

Cheers,
Henrik Holm Nielsen 😉

[BillP · Accepted solution]

1.) yes, you're right. to shutdown the clients after the UPS has been on battery for 10 minutes, you will need to use that UPS: On battery event in PCNS and set it so that when the event lasts for 600 seconds, to shutdown that system. the low battery duration should still be set accordingly incase you have constant power blips that rundown the UPS or something where the UPS: on battery event keeps getting interrupted. doubtful, but it could happen.

2.) ok, yes. we can just stick with UPS: on battery.

3.) if the UPS goes on battery for 5 minutes, then comes back online, the timer is cleared. the problem will be if the UPS is on battery for 10 minutes, the graceful shutdown starts, and then a few minutes later, before the UPS turns off, that AC comes back. you will need to manually turn the servers back on because they will not turn back on automatically until the UPS is rebooted which that process will have been interrupted when AC power returned. but, if you have the network management card, you can just log in remotely and reboot the UPS and it would force the servers back on.

4.) that makes sense. you just might need to re-test when you get that new equipment as i am sure you realize.

i am sure you plan on testing with my new recommendations and tweaking? i'd be eager to hear how it goes. let me know if i missed any questions.