asked on

Upgrading UPS

Hi

We are going to upgrade our UPS on site.

We currently have a single Eaton 5PX and Eaton 5130 UPS running our single and only cabinet at head office. We recently had a power cut which flagged issues. These are the run time & load on the 5px and also a battery warning message. We would now like to increase the wattage and run time, along with managing the UPS and also shutting down our on-premises vmware hosts if required.

We also have 2x old managed APC PDUs.

We have worked out that we have c6000 watts to cover. Rather than buying a N=1 UPS at a steep cost are we able to use two 5px 3000 eatons splitting the load across the dual powered devices (switches, storage and servers) and use the 5130 for non-critical systems.
Is this possible?

Would you also replace the APC PDUs for eatons, would we requires x2 and how best to configure?

Thanks

Steve

Rather than buying a N=1 UPS at a steep cost are we able to use two 5px 3000 eatons splitting the load across the dual powered devices (switches, storage and servers) and use the 5130 for non-critical systems.
Is this possible?

I'd say its pretty much recommended! Always consider splitting across multiple UPSs otherwise the resilience of your entire system is affected by a single device providing power.

When it comes to shutting systems down, most UPSs with this feature require an agent to be installed which reacts to the UPS's warning of impending power loss. Depending on the model/features of the UPSs you have/buy will dictate how realistic this is.
If you can afford it, networked UPSs can communicate to many servers/hosts.
if not, you may need to setup a single server that reacts by running a script/command to shut everything else down.

Member_2_231077

Only downside to two independent UPSs is automatic shutdown, I'm not sure if Eaton's software can be configured to only shutdown the hosts if only both UPSs lose input power.

CHI-LTD

ASKER

Thats my concern.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Member_2_231077

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

CHI-LTD

ASKER

Perfect thanks. Regarding the PDUs - these are essentially allowing more output connection right? So in the case of not having enough connections on the 5px to feed required device we will need 1x PDU for each UPS?

Member_2_231077

Yes. PDUs split the feed into multiple connectors. If intelligent you may be able to power individual sockets on and off although there is unlikely to be software to do that for you.