[c-nsp] pop site battery backup recommendations

[Raymond Macharia]

Hello Mike, I have a similar scenario and have started using Gamatronic. I
have rectifiers powering fibre kit, wireless base station and some Cisco
ME3400s with added batteries (12hours) with snmp for the last year and I am
quite impressed with the performance. Good price too IMHO.

http://www.gamatronic.com/PowerPlusUps.aspx

<http://www.gamatronic.com/PowerPlusUps.aspx>Regards
Raymond Macharia


On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 6:45 PM, Mike
<mike-cisconsplist at tiedyenetworks.com>wrote:

> Howdy,
>
>   This isn't exactly cisco-centric, but it's certainly related
> operationally.
>
>   I operate a county wide isp network and I have about 15 different pops. I
> equip each with APC700/1400's and with XR battery packs, with the goal being
> around 8 hours of runtime in the event of a power failure. I also
> aggressively monitor batteries and have situational awareness regarding the
> self test status, maintenance status, and during ac power failures whats up
> and down and how much runtime the pops have and so forth.
>
>   Over the last 8 years I have been doing this, the single greatest source
> of pop site outages, has been the battery backup units themselves. I have
> experienced multiple repeated failures involving the SNMP management cards
> that have:
>
>   a) went berserk and flooded the network with garbage
>   b) issued spurious "turn off ups" commands to the ups
>   c) began automated self test cycles that shut off the ups (even when
> self-test is disabled!)
>    I further have experienced UPSs that for whatever reason, did not
> switchover during an outage, or did not provide sufficient filtering and
> allowing connected (and supposedly protected) devices to get zapped and
> either fry outright or lockup, or vary in their output voltage too much
> during a failure causing lockups/outages due to 'over voltage'. They've also
> failed to restart once AC power came back on, requiring staff to drive out
> and press a button.  I've also had units that religiously run their
> self-tests but then fail during an actual ac power outage. In short, I have
> seen it all.
>
>   To their credit, I have experienced many many cases of ac power failure
> that these units did gaurd against and provide enough runtime for either
> local power company repair response or for our own internal response to come
> install a generator. But the continuing saga of the UPSs themselves causing
> outages, is really beginning to wear on me and I am looking for a better and
> more intelligent solution.
>
>    I think what I need, is an online ups solution as opposed to the APC's
> we have been deploying. My wants are reliable operation, 1000 - 1500va,
> expandable battery capacity, simple remote network monitoring, and
> reasonable cost of course (;-). My team is frustrated and is threating to
> design and manufacture our own brand of UPS's if the market doesn't have
> anything that gets it right, but surely there's got to be something out
> there folks can trust and I want to know what it is.
>
> Thanks for your suggestions in advance.
>
> Mike-
>
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