Powerchute Network Shutdown 5.0 Download !FREE!
Carmen Hoogland
PowerChute Network Shutdown Is the software you need to perform the shutdown. There is really no other benefit so I'm not sure if you were confused on why you were installing it but I will explain how to set it up.
You install PowerChute Network Shutdown on each server. If your servers with multiple(redundant) power supplies, with each plugged into a different UPS, you would select the redundant mode so the Powerchute software looks at BOTH NMCs before doing a shutdown. Once you install PowerChute Network Shutdown on each server, you configure each one to shutdown how you like. Once you install Powerchute and go through all the settings, it will point you to the web interface. Within this interface you set up how you want your server to shut down. For example, the most common way is to click on "configure events", select UPS: on battery, and click on shutdown system to the far right. You then enter the time on battery required BEFORE a shutdown will start. If you want one server to stay up longer, you just put a higher number for that server. You just need to make sure your runtime allows for it. For example, if you only have 40 minutes of runtime, you of course cannot enter a higher number in the previous step to shutdown your server.
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HI. I want to prove that I will get a clean shutdown with the settings I have configured. Can someone confirm if telling the Symettra UPS to switch to bypass with the "Signal PowerChute Server Shutdown" box ticked should initiate a shutdown of the servers. My servers are set to shutdown on Battery Discharged and Bypass for maintenance (for purposes of this experiement.
I've tried it without success initiating the bypass from software. Should I do it from the UPS front panel and throw the bypass switches ?
Thanks
Martin
It will not signal a shutdown when used with a Bypass command, per the following documentation under the Network Card help:
Signal PowerChute Server Shutdown.
Select this option to notify all servers configured as "PowerChute Network Shutdown clients" that are in communication with this UPS to shut down according to the values configured for "PowerChute Network Shutdown Parameters". This option will not notify servers when performing any Bypass control actions.
You may want to use one of the other options such as UPS turn off, or UPS Reboot. Additionally, if you wanted a more "realistic" test, you could flip the input circuit breaker on the symmetra unit, which would force the UPS to battery, therefore starting an "on battery" notification on the NMC and and the on batt "countdown" on your PCNS clients. Once the computers have shut down based on your parameters, you can then flip the input circuit breaker on the UPS back on, and the UPS will go back to being online again. This test is nice because it not only tests your PCNS client settings, but the entire process from going to on battery, to NMC notification, to PCNS shutdown as if you actually had a power loss.
It's always been something I wanted to set up, I think I did some testing at one point, had some issues and never followed through. I just have each UPS set to Maximum Runtime and when it shuts down it shuts down. I think the issue was that the shutdown would hang, I think now that it was probably due to having the MMC open in Author Mode resulting in a prompt to save when trying to close it.
For you the answer is probably dependant on what is running on those servers. I'd probably script the shutdown locally on the server and then call that batch file from the Network Shutdown app, if it can do that.
I've used powerchute at three sites for about 3 or 4 years. It does a good job, and i use it to shut down our DC's if the power is off for more than 20 minutes. It doesn't go as far as shutting down all the other servers though.
That's right, with the network mgmt card you only need to hook it to your network and assign an IP address. Then you install the network shutdown software on the server and "register" it with the UPS. If you go back to the UPS web console you'll now find the IP address to your server registered in there.
When your UPS hits the max runtime (or whatever setting you choose) it'll send a signal to all IP addresses in it's list and the software installed on the server will see that and perform a soft shutdown.
Very slick system and well worth the $250. The interesting thing about this, is you can register servers that are not even using that UPS (it has no way of knowing). So if you have 4 UPS's, just buy 1 card. Register everyone with the 1 UPS and then make sure that THAT UPS has the highest load (you don't want the other UPS's running out of power before the "master" triggers a shutdown) and you've got a pretty slick power mgmt solution.
WELL My day just got VERY INTERESTING!!! I was on the APC web interface and double checking to make sure all my settings were in place. And accidentally signaled a server shut down! Well as you might imagine I just took our whole network offline for about 20 minutes! At least I know its going to work now! TGIF
lol, at least you know it works ;-)
We're using the free version atm, will purchase the full version soon.
For that amount of server, you should definitely consider virtualizing, my choice is VMware.
Get an APC 3K UPS and add a couple of 3K batteries and you're good to go for some time. (You can stack up to 8 batteries, it's really cheap, check it out on their site). Using the software to manage shutdowns or make it run a script such as
shutdown -f -s -t 00 in order to make sure it shuts down.
Different shutdown time for each groups of servers: shutdown Exchange, file servers, database servers before DC's.
^^ What I'm going to do after I finish the VM implementation ^^
APC shutdown software is available for Linux Redhat and can be installed on VMware ESX (not ESXi). Change the power off behavior of your VM's from power off to "Shut down guest" and VMware will handle the shutdown for you... (though you may still have to do some scripting if you have a specific shutdown order you want)
Ensure your using the latest Powerchute and you can schedule a script to run on X percent battery remaining when power is lost. This is a simple batchscript so you can stop services using "Taskkill" command and shutdown using the "shutdown" command.
You should have the network shutdown software in place with the management cards. We use it at all of our clients and it works great. I would not recomend the auto restart simply because power has been known to come on for a bit and then shut down again in their repair process. We usually have a notifcation sent out that they are down, and then someone monitors the battery charge when it comes back up. Don't be too eager to jump the gun after a power outage. You should be doing a couple of things out of the gate here.
4) Do an actual shutdown one evening or weekend. You need to see how long your run time is, and make sure the shut down configuration actually works. Then, you need to have a chance to see what it is like to bring these up remotely. Do not attempt to bring up your servers if the battery recharge is below your threshold. They will shut right back down, For example, if you have your battery threshold set at 10%, you may want to wait until 15% before you have them back up.
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