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I am the remote (very remote) admin for a very rural site (golf course/club) that experiences frequent power outages due to a very odd circumstance with Ohio Edison.

Everything is obviously on battery back-up (APC from Schneider Electric), and almost all of the power interruptions are very brief and barely drain the battery of 5-8% charge before restoration. However, two or three times a year, we get an outage that drains the battery and shuts us down. Obviously, this is not optimal or good at all, and I have been planning to fix it for a while, but too many other things took precedence. Now the time is here, and I am looking to set this up to do the following:

  1. Gently just us down in the event of an outage when a certain drain threshold has been reached.
  2. Shut everything down in a specific order.
  3. Restart everything automatically (In a specific order) to avoid the issues caused by a random start-up.

I am reading the white papers on APC’s PowerChute and they have two versions, the Secure Shutdown and the Enterprise. I am pretty sure that I can accomplish this with the Enterprise version, but budgets being what they are, I am trying to figure out if I can do this with the free version.

Does anyone happen to have any experience or advice with this? I can’t really tell through he documentation alone.

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I don’t really have much experience with PowerChute myself, but if budget is a concern on this, you could use one of the free/open source options.

Jeff Geerling recently did a write-up on NUT (Network UPS Tools) and some cheaper smart home devices to accomplish the same goals for his office.

EDIT: Forgot to include the link to said write-up: NUT on my Pi, so my servers don't die | Jeff Geerling

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NUT would also be my recommendation if PowerChute is complex or doesn’t work for you. As for powering up in a specific order, this may not be an option on the lower tier kit.

Has the business thought about buying a small generator to take over power when power is out longer, to avoid the UPS having to shut down at all?

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Thanks. I tried this type of google search and came up with nothing but now that I kknow, I will look into it. It sounds promising.

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I have approached them already about a Generac type of unit, but site maintenance said there are coding issues with using a generator that doesn’t supply the entire building because there is a restaurant and bar, so they are subject to the Food and Beverage rules. There is a giant refrigeration unit and other heavy-use items. It appears to be an all-or-nothing situation. The industrial sizes are in the 20k range, and they see that as a luxury, as most o the long outages tend to happen at night, so the only person who suffers is IT :grinning_face:

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I had a feeling when you said they were hesitant to spring for the enterprise version of the software they weren’t in a position to purchase a generator either…maybe point out the cost of the software vs a generator and let the money talk?

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:slightly_smiling_face: Manipulation, I love it! My favorite tactic when asking for cash.

It’s not the cost in general, it’s more the timing. They aren’t afraid to spend, but they just dropped $2.5 million on a new irrigation system and have another $2 million capital improvement coming up in the fall. They have asked everyone to stick to their budgets as closely as possible until this is paid off in a couple of years, and I have been Mr. (I need more money) pretty consistently for the past four months. They will pay for the software, no problem, but the industrial gas-powered back-up is the real solution.

Once they have a blackout during a wedding or large outing and they stand to lose $25K, they will be asking me where they can get a generator and if can I get it installed by tomorrow.

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Network UPS Tools - Welcome

I was thinking more of a portable one that should be small enough to keep specific areas running, and not impact others, however if this is not an option, consider larger batteries and/or solar/wind generators instead, it doesn’t need to be diesel.

Sounds like $20k well spent to me, and over several losses this saving adds up quickly, not to mention they could in theory run specific days on the generator and not the grid if they wished.

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I agree.

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You’re absolutely right — NUT (Network UPS Tools) is a solid alternative to PowerChute, especially for environments where PowerChute is too restrictive or doesn’t integrate well. It offers a lot more flexibility and works with a wider range of UPS brands.

Regarding power-up sequencing, many entry-level UPS systems don’t support this feature natively. If that’s critical, you’d typically need to look at more advanced or enterprise-grade models that allow load segment control or integration with managed PDUs.

And yes, investing in a small generator is a very practical idea for businesses in areas with frequent or extended outages. It not only prevents the UPS from draining completely but also gives you time for a more graceful shutdown or even uninterrupted operation if sized correctly.

[moderator removed content here because a link didn’t lead to what was stated]

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I thought they also have like the serial shutdown & network shutdown ?

  • PowerChute Network Shutdown License for Windows 10/11/2016/2022 etc (Free)
  • PowerChute Network Shutdown License for Linux (Free)
  • PowerChute Network Shutdown License for VMware host only (Free)
  • PowerChute Network Shutdown License for Virtualization and HCI, 1-Year ($244)
  • PowerChute Network Shutdown License for Virtualization and HCI, 3-Year ($578)

https://download.schneider-electric.com/files?p_Doc_Ref=ECOIT_IT_PCNS_5_BR_EN&p_enDocType=EDMS

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I’m currently using the free version, environment is 3 hyper-v hosts with a mix of 2019/2022/Ubuntu guests. While in theory Hyper-v should be able to shut everything down in an orderly fashion if allowed enough time, the reality is when a battery exhaustion event occurs, I inevitably see guests complain about an unclean shutdown.

As far as orderly restarts go, the APC gear I have is limited to 3 outlet groups, so if you can bring it back up in 3 or less stages, that should be doable.

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Paint that exact picture, remind them that a generator takes time to source and install (at least to do it right) and that they don’t want to wait until it’s too late (but that this less expensive option will at least buy them time)

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You may want to look into a PDU that can do programmable/sequential startup as part of your solution.

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This is great information. Thank you. We have two Windows server 2019 machines, one running two VM’s with a hosted POS application and another in a remote building that connects to the network via Ubiquit Nanos. The server in the rermote building runs the Rainbird irrigation system. I think I can get this done in three zones and cover everythiing that typically present issues.

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I am not sure about Free ESXi vs vCenter controlled ESXi as for my smaller setups, once UPS reaches like 20% (estimated 10 min left), it will trigger ESXi to shut down, which will trigger ALL VMs on that host to shut down (not power off).

After power recovery, the server is set to power up (via BIOS). Then ESXi will power up critical VMs (like DCs) after 30s, Production VMs after 120s, VBR server after 600s but leave staging & dev VMs powered off (for admins to manually power them up as non mission critical).

These power down and power up settings can be set using cVenter on ESXi servers. vCenter is easier as it will also move the config if you vMotion the VMs to another host…

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Sounds like ESXI is better equipped to handle these circumstances. My Hyper-V guests are set to shut down (graceful) vs power off (hard) … but when it actually happens, it seems that the Hyper-v host does not wait for a signal from the guest that shutdown is complete before the host shuts down. Mine are set up to power back up on power restoration via Idrac.

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