Connecting a SURTD5000XLI to an PNU ATEN PN9108

[Anonymous user]

Hello,
We have our servers connected to an ATEN PN9108 PDU which is able to signal the UPS status separately to each connected server by a separate serial connection. The PDU itself is powered by the SURTD5000XLI.
This way we are able to define the behaviour of each server on a low battery event depending on the OS and individual demands.
The UPS itself should signal low battery to the PDU by a serial interface, using the simple signalling as known with the 940-0020B signalling cable. There would be a separate wire for power-fail, battery-low and shutdown.
How can I configure the SURTD5000XLI to provide this information over the serial interface (instead of a protocol such as for powerchute)? Will I need a special cable? The SURTD5000XLI came with the 940-1525A cable.

many thx
Tom

[Erasmus_apc]

APC UPS' are generally not made to be used with outside/3rd party devices and/or applications (the exceptions being various accessories, and those devices where stated), and the SURTD line is no different. The SURTD units are meant to be used with APC network cards, software, etc. and cannot send "signal" to non-apc PDU's. We do not currently have any plans to license any of the SURTD microlink communication.

[BillP]

the SURTD units use a different communication language and do not support simple signaling as far as i know.

[Anonymous user]

Thank you for your fast response.
OK, in this case I have the following questions:
Which of APC's PDUs do support a serial communication in a way that a low-battery incident of the UPS can be sent to the connected servers, configurable per connection of the PDU? The goal is to perform an OS-depending safe shutdown by a serial interface.
Does the SURTD5000XLI have another option to signal a low-battery incident to 3rd party products, e.g. by the output relays of the built-in AP9619? If not, what are the output relays of the AP9619 ment for?
Thx
Tom

[Cap1_apc]

There is one output relay on the AP9619. It is a dry contact - normally open. You can configure a UPS low battery event to close that contact. From there, you can do whatever you want with that setup...whether it signals a 3rd party device in some manner is up to the 3rd party device's own ability to perform based on dry contact change states. I don't believe that ATEN PDU has input contacts to support such a setup.

I'm trying to understand the big picture here - why do you want the PDU to communicate to the servers? The way we have it designed now is that our UPS will signal your systems to shutdown based on configurable UPS+ states. What benefit do you gain by funneling this communication through a PDU?

Generally a switched PDU (like you have there) is useful for cycling power to particular outlets, perhaps to perform some sort of maintenance activity or to cycle the power to a hung server. Even APC's own switched PDU's do not have the capability to "work" with the UPS in terms of graceful shutdowns*. That is driven by the UPS communication, whether it is a direct serial connection to the server or more likely a Powerchute Network Shutdown through the Network Card.

* I mean built in functionality. Our PDU's do support SNMP, so you can automate a lot of things through SNMP scripts.

Message was edited by: Cap1

[voidstar_apc]

The output relays of the AP9619 can certainly signal the low battery condition. This is one of the exceptions Erasmus mentioned. There are various other ways to get this information from the network management card, such as using PCNS (PowerChute Network Shutdown) to run a command script, or using an SNMP trap receiver.

Once you have that information, you need to configure PDU outlets based on it. Like other manufacturers, APC has switchable PDUs that can be controlled via the serial port, however we don't have a system in place for directly integrating the PDU and the UPS. That said, it can be done.

[Check out this apc-forums post|Referenced content removed] where one person created PCNS command scripts to turn off PDU outlets when the UPS is on battery for 10 minutes, and then turn them back on 2 minutes after power is restored. I'm sure something similar could be done with your 3rd party PDUs.

I hope that helps.

edit
Reading over the original question and checking the manual for the ATEN PN9108, I now realize that ppm is using a PDU that supports simple signaling UPSes. While I know in the past, APC's UPS provided simple signaling, I'm not sure if the same is true for the SURTD5000XLI. Hopefully someone else on this forum can tell us if there is a simple signaling cable for it.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

At this point I have to mention that we have been victims of the Java Runtime Environment expiration problem of APC's PowerChute Business Edition software back in 2005 (http://nam-en.apc.com/cgi-bin/nam_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=7202). This was a very expensive experience and from there on we prefered "basic" solutions for the safe shutdown instead of additional software such as PowerChute on every server.
However, the posts here give us enough hints to solve the issue the way we like it.

Thank you all for your help!