Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Colocation and Data Centers : Power Cleaning and Remote Reboot Switch Combined?

[cyman]

Hi there,

We have a full rack and are looking for something that supports:
- Power cleaned at our cage (does this need a UPS?)
- Ability to measure the usage of individual sockets including peaks.
- Remote reboot.
- One issue is that with redundant supplies, we have like 20 outlets.
- We have a 30A circuit.

Here's the product I saw, but it's not remote reboot tho, i Think, and also it's only 8 sockets-
http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/pro...0PFCRT2Ua.html

Here's product that does not include power cleaning, but has power monitoring and remote reboot:
http://www.raritan.com/px-2000/px2-2496/tech-specs/
*If there was a product like this which did power cleaning, that would be great.

Why we need power cleaning at our cage: We actually want clean power guaranteed to each of the 20 outlets, ideally. Because we are concerned that even our own equipment can cause power fluctuations. We've had bad experiences. Also, we do not entirely trust our colo provider to give us clean power.

[iLoveHosting-UK]

Originally Posted by cyman

Here's the product I saw, but it's not remote reboot tho, i Think, and also it's only 8 sockets-
http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/pro...0PFCRT2Ua.html

I believe this product does have remote power. Look in the specification and features tab.

PowerPanel® Business Edition - This software suite manages the power for all servers and computers supported by the UPS on a network. Features include application/OS shutdown, event logging (power, surge, and voltage variations), hibernation mode, internal reports and analysis, as well as remote management capability for comprehensive power control of up to 25 clients.


- Ashton

[shvinod]

Originally Posted by essential-hosting

I believe this product does have remote power. Look in the specification and features tab.

Pinternal reports and analysis, as well as remote management capability for comprehensive power control of up to 25 clients.


- Ashton

Not sure how you can do the power control 25 clients with just 8 sockets..

[cheezus]

Are you sure your colo provider will even allow you to install another UPS system after their own UPS system? I was under the impression this is not allowed.

[shvinod]

Originally Posted by cheezus

Are you sure your colo provider will even allow you to install another UPS system after their own UPS system? I was under the impression this is not allowed.

They will let you do as long as you pay for 30A power for this unit..

[porcupine]

Originally Posted by shvinod

They will let you do as long as you pay for 30A power for this unit..

Most DC's dont look favorably on customers installing their own UPS when the facility already has a (much larger) UPS system in place.

Depending on the facility, there can be several reasons for this (scale/scope factoring into any of these of course), several of which I've seen first hand in days past:

- UPS's setup in serial may not work, because when when the larger/primary UPS experiences a utility loss, and starts supporting the load off batteries, it typically dumps out a square wave (over sine wave), and smaller, typically rackmount UPS's will see this as a brownout, and dump into their batteries, often causing the smaller UPS's to run dry long before the larger ones
- Floor loading
- Hazards in the DC (batteries/potentially medium/large capacitors/inverters/etc. away from a separated power area)
- Customers who install lots of UPS's/batteries can keep power going, and produce heat after the utility has gone out (thus no HVAC), damaging their equipment, and others in the vicinity
- Different level of fire hazard relative to racks of servers (esp. if the power plant is totally separate).

I'm sure there are other reasons I've skimmed over/missed entirely as well. Even if it makes sense to be able to dump in another UPS at a glance, a provider may cite any of the above stating it's not permissible.

[voipcarrier]

As others mentioned, any facility already running a UPS that knows what they're doing won't let you install your own. There's no reason to do it. Assuming they already have a UPS, their $20,000+ UPS will be (in theory) much better than your $500 one.

As far as the remote reboot and metering, it's really personal preference. We use APC power distribution, but there are cheaper alternatives. I believe the comparable 30A 208V APC model to what you listed above is AP8641. If you don't need per outlet metering, the cost goes down substantially.

[porcupine]

Originally Posted by voipcarrier

As others mentioned, any facility already running a UPS that knows what they're doing won't let you install your own. There's no reason to do it. Assuming they already have a UPS, their $20,000+ UPS will be (in theory) much better than your $500 one.

To be fair, thats not always/entirely true, for a few reasons:

#1 - A decent UPS is well over $20k (just pointing this out as a general statement). To get 150-200kva of UPS power installed (as a baseline example, as is not "that much" power), you'll spend closer to $100k by the time you've had it installed (*properly*)
.
#2 - Larger UPS's often have much shorter run times then what many customers think. "What, you mean this doesn't have 2 hours of run time?" "no, it has 15 minutes, enough to get the generators started with some margin of error". Adding runtime is prohibitively expensive in many scenario's, upgrading from 15 minutes, to 1 hour, can double your deployment cost (depending on the space [and cost of space] you have available, and battery density you require as a result of the cost per sqft).

#3 - Customer/smaller UPS's can add extensive runtime for specific applications, for 3rd world pennies on that dollar , not that it always makes sense.

I've seen exceptions, one way to work around that (if the facility will let you, and some gear is absolutely mission critical) is:

Have 2x power feeds, 2x UPS's of your own, 2x in-rack ATS's, and feed each ATS by a direct feed to the facility, and one feed to the UPS which is fed from the facility on that same power feed. The servers would have dual PSU's presumably, and plug into both double redundant paths you've created. This will provide a fairly complete level of redundancy, and let you add runtime for relatively cheap.

[voipcarrier]

Originally Posted by porcupine

To be fair, thats not always/entirely true, for a few reasons:

#1 - A decent UPS is well over $20k (just pointing this out as a general statement). To get 150-200kva of UPS power installed (as a baseline example, as is not "that much" power), you'll spend closer to $100k by the time you've had it installed (*properly*)
.
#2 - Larger UPS's often have much shorter run times then what many customers think. "What, you mean this doesn't have 2 hours of run time?" "no, it has 15 minutes, enough to get the generators started with some margin of error". Adding runtime is prohibitively expensive in many scenario's, upgrading from 15 minutes, to 1 hour, can double your deployment cost (depending on the space [and cost of space] you have available, and battery density you require as a result of the cost per sqft).

#3 - Customer/smaller UPS's can add extensive runtime for specific applications, for 3rd world pennies on that dollar , not that it always makes sense.

I've seen exceptions, one way to work around that (if the facility will let you, and some gear is absolutely mission critical) is:

Have 2x power feeds, 2x UPS's of your own, 2x in-rack ATS's, and feed each ATS by a direct feed to the facility, and one feed to the UPS which is fed from the facility on that same power feed. The servers would have dual PSU's presumably, and plug into both double redundant paths you've created. This will provide a fairly complete level of redundancy, and let you add runtime for relatively cheap.

I agree. I made up the $20K number, assuming the smallest UPS a facility has would be in the 40-50 kVa range. A single battery costs over half as much as the UPS the original poster mentioned. I was just making a point.

In most scenarios, the UPS is there to filter brownouts and allow generators to start, making the normal 8-15 minute window more than adequate. In my humble pseudo-electrical-engineer opinion, putting multiple UPS systems in series is a terrible idea and asking for trouble. That's compounded when one of the systems in the chain is consumer grade and certainly not designed for that usage scenario.

[voipcarrier]

Originally Posted by porcupine

I've seen exceptions, one way to work around that (if the facility will let you, and some gear is absolutely mission critical) is:

Have 2x power feeds, 2x UPS's of your own, 2x in-rack ATS's, and feed each ATS by a direct feed to the facility, and one feed to the UPS which is fed from the facility on that same power feed. The servers would have dual PSU's presumably, and plug into both double redundant paths you've created. This will provide a fairly complete level of redundancy, and let you add runtime for relatively cheap.

Another option is to use DC power for mission critical gear. Often times the facility DC plant will have a much longer runtime in the case of power loss. It's not uncommon for 45 minutes and up. Also, there are options to further augment that with in-rack battery banks (if allowed by the facility).

[porcupine]

Originally Posted by voipcarrier

Another option is to use DC power for mission critical gear. Often times the facility DC plant will have a much longer runtime in the case of power loss. It's not uncommon for 45 minutes and up. Also, there are options to further augment that with in-rack battery banks (if allowed by the facility).

Excellent point, but you've gotta be careful doing that on some gear. I remember a few providers doing that in Switch and Data/RACO (way back in the day), and if memory serves me correctly, the Cisco 12k series didn't much seem to like it (I don't remember the specifics of what happened, but I do recall it didn't work out, and they had to revert to 100% AC).

[cyman]

It's a good thing I asked. It's too bad because our provider is using old equipment and I'm unhappy with the age of the equipment being used. And, I suspect that other users of the power, or our own equipment is causing the power not to be clean for some mission critical computers. Is that a valid concern?

[iLoveHosting-UK]

Originally Posted by shvinod

Not sure how you can do the power control 25 clients with just 8 sockets..

It was quoted from the website the op specified.

- Ashton

[silasmoeckel]

Originally Posted by essential-hosting

It was quoted from the website the op specified.

- Ashton

Thats software control pretty useless if you need to hard reboot.

[Visbits]

Originally Posted by porcupine

- Customers who install lots of UPS's/batteries can keep power going, and produce heat after the utility has gone out (thus no HVAC), damaging their equipment, and others in the vicinity

A lot of good points but how are you going to damage other peoples equipment if they are already off with the power failure :-).

Also you run into grounding issues if setup incorrectly daisy chaining UPS systems. From my experience plugging a UPS into a UPS ends up with lots of buzzing and strange noise from the customer unit. Never investigated the cause of this.