Network Management

[BillP]

Hello,

I have read the PDF manuals and used the Help within the network management, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to gracefully shutdown systems in a particular order.

Hardware:
APC Smart-UPS 750XL
AP9617 Network card
Powerchute Network Shutdown v2.2.3

Environment:
One physical 2008 Server
Two virtual machines residing on the server above
All have the 2.2.3 client installed

What I would like to accomplish is the following:
At the current load we have estimated 41 minutes of battery life.
At 10 minutes left on the battery, shut down both virtual machines.
At 5 minutes left on battery, shut down physcial 2008 server


Last night our power went out at 4:33am, one VM shut down fine, then the server was just shut off, no graceful shutdown at all. The beeps were consistent and then towards the last part of the battery life the beeps were on straight for about 5 minutes or less.

Thanks for any guidance on this!

[BillP]

Are you using Hyper-V or VMWare or a different one? If you are using either HyperV or VMWare we do have a different PowerChute Network Shutdown that will work for these 2 different softwares. Basically, you will install the PCNS software on the host and there is a tool from the Host itself that would command the gracefull shutdown on the guest OS.

Below are some APC Knowledgebase Articles that I hope can help you out:
* [PCNS for Hyper-V Configuration for shutting down virtual machines|http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10381/kw/hyper-v]
* [Installing PowerChute Network Shutdown on VMware 3.5, 3.5i, 4.0, and 4.0i|http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10330/kw/vmware]
* [Procedure for install PCNS 2.2.4 on VMware vMA 4.1|http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11144/kw/vmware]
* [VMware ESXi server not shutting down when commanded to by PowerChute Network Shutdown.|http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10727/kw/vmware]

[BillP]

Thanks for the reply, but I am using VMWare Server 2.X, the one you install onto an OS, in this case Server 2008. There is a HyperV version like this as well, maybe the clients that you linked apply anyways?

Still, the main concern is how to configure the whole bunch to shutdown when the battery is nearly exhausted. At this point I cannot figure even that out.

Thanks again!

[BillP]

Can you tell us what is the exact version of Server 2008 do you have as well as the Operating Systems of those that are running on the VMWare Server? The PCNS version that you have there is that the free/regular PCNS or is that for PCNS with HyperV/VMWare?

Can you also tell us how many minutes would it take for each OS to completely have a safe shutdown?

[BillP · Accepted solution]

One of our product specialist tried the setup below and was able to get it working.

* A PC with a Microsoft Windows Operating System
* A PC with a Linux Operating System
* An APC Network Management Card
# We have configured the Windows System with a 300 second (5 minute) shutdown delay to match your setup. See WindowsConfig.jpg
# We then configured the Linux system with the default 10 second delay and configured the Network Management Card with 11 minute low battery (10 minutes was not available so we opted to use 11 minutes since this is close to the required 10 minutes). Also on the same Linux System you need to be sure that the Turn off the UPS after the shutdown finishes is unchecked. We would want the Windows System to send the turn off signal since this is the last system what would shut down. Please see LinuxConfig.jpg and NMCConfig.jpg
# When the UPS gets to 11 minutes left on battery it sent out a low battery signal. The Linux system shutdown immediately and after the 300 second delay the Windows system shuts down.