Help needed! Must be missing something minor...

[Anonymous user]

Good Afternoon,

I have the following equipment:

1 ESXi Host

1 Smart 5000 UPS with NIC Management Card

UPS Configuration: Simple

vCenter running as a VM

23 VM's

PCNS 4.1 running on 64Bit Windows Installation on a Physical machine

I have such an annoying issue which is really annoying! This is my first experience with PCNS! The installation of the Windows Client went fine, no errors at all. PCNS connected to the Management Card fine and logged onto vCentre correctly. However, PCNS is only showing the host and does not let me expand the host to show me the VM's during initial configuration.

I can only move the host from the left hand column to the right. Should PCNS allow me to move individual VM's across? I've read lots of manuals/posts etc but I cannot see the problem.

Please help!

Thanks in advance

[BillP]

Hi,

I am sorry the User’s Guide is not clear. PowerChute Network Shutdown has the ability to power down and restart VMs. You can configure VM Shutdown/Start up through the configuration wizard, Web GUI, or pcnsconfig.ini file. See screenshot below from the web GUI.

The shutdown process is

1. PowerChute reports that the UPS is on battery.
2. Shutdown delay for the On Battery event elapses. PowerChute starts a maintenance mode task on each Host. At the same time it sends a command to turn off the UPS or Outlet Group.
3. PowerChute starts VM shutdown followed by vApp shutdown. PowerChute polls the host/s to see what VMs and vApps are running and command the ones that are powered on to shutdown.
4. VM/vApp shutdown durations elapse and PowerChute gracefully shuts down the vCenter Server VM. 5. vCenter VM shutdown duration elapses.
5. PowerChute starts executing the shutdown command file. - VM & vApp Shutdown enabled with a 120 second delay (i.e. 120 seconds allocated for each action to complete). - The option to turn off the UPS or Outlet Group is enabled. - A shutdown command file has been configured with a 120 second duration. When a critical UPS event, such as UPS on Battery occurs, the following sequence is triggered:
6. Shutdown command file duration elapses. PowerChute shuts down the VMware hosts using the order on the VMware Host Protection page. (The host running the vCenter VM will be shut down last in this scenario).
7. OS shutdown sequence starts on the PowerChute physical machine.
8. After a 70 second delay the OS starts to shut down.
9. UPS waits for greater of Low Battery Duration/Maximum Required Delay (NonOutlet Aware UPS‟s) or the Outlet Group Power Off Delay (initiated during step 2).
10. UPS turns off after the user-configurable Shutdown Delay time has elapsed or the Outlet Group turns off after the power off Delay elapses.

If you have a cluster set up you can also prioritize the shutdown of individual VMs. See page 38 of the User’s Guide for assistance with VM prioritization.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the information! Much appreciated.