Shared Knowledge
“Multiple
PC's - Battery Backup
- APC
PowerChute Business Edition Basic”
14 February 2007
Modified: 13 March 2007
In part 1 of "Battery
Backup
- UPS Selection", I
described the research I conducted into deciding on which type and size of
uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to buy
for my home needs. In part 1, I
described that I wanted a UPS that could support my 3 tower local area network (LAN)
computers, a cable
modem, a 4 port router and my telephone answering system (supports cordless
phones).
Given all the above and
wanting to error on the side of having more volt amps (VA) that I needed, I
bought an APC SUA 1500VA UPS.
When the APC UPS was delivered, it was easy to install although it
does weigh close to 65 pounds. I must comment here that because the unit uses
LED’s to indicate battery charge and load, these LED’s are so bright, you can
not read the small label under them as to what they mean or are supposed to
represent. So the first thing I had to do was to use my label maker to make
larger labels and install under the appropriate set of LED’s.
Now when I connected my main
computer, router, cable modem and telephone answering machine to the UPS, the total load on the UPS appeared
to be minimal as indicated by only one LED being lit in the column of load
LED’s on the left side of the UPS, so given
the fact that I have 2 other computers on my local area network (LAN) sitting right beside the UPS, I also tied their loads to the UPS and again was very pleased to see that still only one LED of the load
LED column of LED’s was lit.
APC Business Edition Basic software. With all the hardwire
devices I wanted supported tied to the UPS, the instructions which came with the UPS said I should connect a USB cable from the UPS to my main computer and install the APC Business Edition Basic software. Ok. I inserted the APC Business Edition Basic CD into my main computer and in the very first
window of the application was a display saying that Business Edition Basic
consisted of 3 distinct applications: agent, server and console and it very
clearly said to install the agent component on all systems being supported by a
UPS.
So I installed the agent
software on my main computer and then the server software and finally the
console software. I then went to my second LAN PC and tried to install the agent software as the CD had told me to do
but when I tried to install, the application would not install as it could not
“see” an attached UPS. What?
Upon investigation and I have
to say that APC does not make it easy, the agent component of their
Business Edition Basic software is only to be installed on a computer that is
directly tied to a UPS via a USB cable. In
other words, their idea is that each PC would have its own UPS and thus the agent software would detect the communications between
the PC and the UPS via the dedicated USB cable. So, ok, the point to the Business Edition Basic server and
console applications on the main computer?
If each of my 3 different LAN PC’s had their own UPS, from my
main computer, I could see each UPS and
configure it as I desired. Nice, but I don’t need 3 different UPS’s to support 3 PC’s on my LAN.
Again, given that I wanted to
keep various devices alive during transient power events, I also wanted the UPS to signal the main computer when its battery backup was about to be
exhausted and command the main computer and all of my LAN PC’s to gracefully shutdown. So how to do this since APC’s Business Edition basic could not.
APC’s Business Edition Deluxe? When I installed APC’s Business Edition Basic there was a reference made that to be able to
“see” UPS devices outside of my LAN, I would need their deluxe edition. Would this let me command all my LAN-based PC’s to shut down gracefully?
Nope. The deluxe addition just allows a user to see UPS’s tied directly to PC’s on multiple LANS. Nice, but not what I needed
and I did verify this functioning with APC.
So how to communicate to all
PC’s to shut down gracefully? Again,
more research and again, APC did not make it easy, but in my APC SUA 1500 UPS there is what they call a smart-card slot. Now to
command multiple PC’s on a LAN to shut down gracefully, I needed to buy either an
Ethernet or serial interface card which installs into the UPS smart-slot. With the Ethernet card installed, I would no longer need a
USB cable from the UPS to my main computer as the UPS would become a node on my LAN and be able to communicate with all PC’s on the LAN. With a serial card installed, I would have to run serial cable from
each PC to the UPS smart card. No thank you.
So finally after much
research and even a communications or two with APC support and I must say that they where very responsive, I determined I
needed an APC Ethernet interface smart card, but when I checked, APC wanted almost $250 for this card! What? $250 is almost as much as I
paid for the UPS itself, and so off to eBay I went.
Again, APC does not make it easy as there are 3 versions of Ethernet smart cards
for their SUA 1500 UPS: (AP9617) a plain vanilla Ethernet card; (AP9618) an
Ethernet card with environmental monitoring to detect out of bounds heat or
humidity conditions in the room hosting the UPS or PC’s and also allowing command shutdown on PC’s outside of the LAN and finally an Ethernet card (AP9619) with environmental monitoring
but which does not allow PC’s to be commanded outside of the LAN the UPS is a part of.
Costs (from APC): the vanilla Ethernet card is like $250, the best or AP9617 is $500
or so and the last or AP 9619 is $400: expensive to say the least.
So on eBay I have found an AP
9619 and am going to buy it. No, I will not be able to command PC’s outside of
my LAN but that should not be a problem and this model does
have environmental monitoring, which, although it not really necessary, would
be nice to have in unattended situations where power has failed and my air
conditioning is not running and heat builds up excessively.
What a mess. All I wanted to
do was to command PC’s on my LAN to
shutdown gracefully but it has taken a ton of research to determine what I need
and at this point, I do not have the smart card in hand or the software
installed on all PC’s to make sure it all works according to APC’s descriptions.
So if you have a LAN and want a UPS to command all to shutdown gracefully, make sure the UPS you buy has some Ethernet capability.