Shutdown VMware Cluster when either of 2 UPS has low battery?

[Anonymous user]

I have a vSphere 6.0 Cluster with 5 hosts running off of one UPS. I also have 3 iSCSI arrays running off a second UPS and providing storage for the cluster.

I need to shutdown the whole cluster if the battery on either UPS becomes low.

I have installed Powerchute Network Shutdown on a physical 2008R2 server. vCenter is running on the cluster in a virtual 2008R2 server.

I cannot see how to shut down the cluster as soon as either UPS becomes low. 

Can anyone help?

Thanks

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You can configure PowerChute on the physical server as advanced redundant UPS to shutdown both when 1 goes on battery.

When installing PowerChute select enable VMware support. Then when running the set up wizard select Host Managed by vCenter and enter the vCenter credential. NOTE: All hosts must have the same credentials to allow PowerChute to shut them down. During the setup when asked to configure UPS select advanced. When ask to add UPS create two UPS groups. As an example create a group One and a group Two. The hosts will be connected to group One and the iSCSI will be powered by group Two. Later you will need to assign each host to the proper group ie. group One and if the UPS has outlet groups to the proper outlet group. Then when asked to configure shutdown conditions you leave the default settings with the exception of turn off UPS. In most cases you will want the UPS to turn off when PowerChute is shutting down the systems. 

Once the setup is completed in the PowerChute web interface select configure events and then select shutdown for runtime remaining below threshold. Select enable shutdown and enter the value you would like PowerChute to start the shutdown at. When either UPS falls below this value PowerChute will trigger the shutdown process. 

Please Note: You should read Application Note 180, PowerChute VMware User's Guide, and Application Note 186 before proceeding.