Several Smart UPS devices for our city network, configuration help needed

[BillP]

OK, I am new to the UPS integration world and need some guidance. We have deployed 11 - SURTA2200 with NMC2 and 4 - SMX 1500 with NMC2 (NMC2s are all 9631 cards). All of these UPS provide power to Cisco switches and routers in remote closets and do not connect via USB or serial to a local PC. 

I was trying to set up Powerchute and purchased the deluxe 25 node software. I have read that this is not the correct software for our environment and that I need to use PCNS which I downloaded and have started adding devices. My management wants to be able to monitor the entire environment with Powerchute but I am not seeing this capability with PCNS. 

Any thoughts or similar experiences? 

[BillP]

Hello Gary,

Some clarification - PowerChute Network Shutdown is what you use to install on any PC or supported OS that you want to gracefully shutdown based on a status of the UPS. If your UPSs are not powering any PCs then you do not need any PowerChute software and would strictly rely on and monitor the Network Management Card in your UPSs and then maybe look at a tool like our StruxureWare Data Center Expert or some other SNMP tool that can monitor the small fleet you have. PowerChute's job is to run as a service on a PC or supported OS and monitor the status of the UPS over the network (or business edition does this via USB or serial cable) and then trigger your PC's OS to turn off when the UPS's battery is depleted or based on other scenarios you can configure (on battery after X minutes, for example). Hope that helps clarify.

Now, since it sounds like you just need to monitor the UPSs (using the Network Management Card), which protocol do you want to monitor by or do you use in your environment to monitor other stuff? The AP9631's (your UPS's NIC) support web, telnet/SSH, SNMP (traps and polling), email, and several other options and features. Those are the monitoring options pretty much though most people use. You assign each an IP address and then pick a monitoring protocol. SNMP is very popular for a large population. Some folks use some popular third party tools such as Nagios, HP OpenView, or What'sUP Gold - not sure if you have anything already or have heard of those. Our own tool which tightly integrates with our own products and gives you a few perks like mass deploying firmware, configurations, and reporting is StruxureWare Data Center Expert. This tool, available in hardware or virtual appliance, uses SNMP v1 or v3 for monitoring and gives you a central view/console to monitor all your devices with alarming, data gathering (voltages, temperatures, alarm history, etc). It also supports third party device monitoring through SNMP or even Modbus. That product is here -> http://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/categories/struxureware-for-data-centers/control/struxureware-data-cen... and is extremely robust. There is a free trial of the VMWare appliance that allows you to monitor 5 devices for free so you can see it in action, assuming you have VMWare ESXi which is the currently supported VM Host.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the info. i wih i had known this prior to purchasing unneeded software. As far as SNMP I would assume this would work well with Solar Winds?