UCS C210 integration for UPS remote power down

[JMistrot1]

I need to configure my UCS servers (not sure if its via CIMC or VMWare) so that the APC UPS can tell the server to shut down the hosts and power the server down before the UPS dies during a power hit.  Not looking for details but a pointer to some documentation as google is not working its magic this morning.  Thanks-

[Robert Burns]

Sounds like what you're looking for is PowerChute.  It's an agent provided by APC that will talk to the host (vmware) and tell it to gracefully shutdown in the event of a power loss (before the battery depletes).  Search for PCNS (Powerchute network shutdown).

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1007036

Regards,

Robert

[bbiandov]

@JMistrot1 did you ever implement PCNS using the latest OVA and did Cisco approve it as supported solution meaning they won't say "oh you have a custom OVA on your UCS so no support" kind of a thing?

Thanks

[radzio2015]

Yes, I have the same problem.

I have standalone C-Series Cisco server UCS-SP-C220M4-B-S1.
I need to configure this server {not sure if its via CIMC but I could not find anything there, I have the newest version 4.0(2l)} so that the APC UPS can tell the server to shut down the host and power the server down before the UPS dies during a power hit.

I have two power supply 770 W connected each one to separate APC-UPS.
So if the two UPS backup battery are gone the server is brutally going to shutdown what can cause a very serious problems for the platform. I spend a lot of time to search internet about this topic but frankly I was not able to find any a good source?

Please help?

[Kirk J]

As Robert's post mentioned previously, you will need to be running power-chute agent on a host connected to the UPS in question.  There is a good bit of configuration that varies on the actual setup depending on whether your UPS has a network card in it,, or whether it just has a USB/serial connection.

It is the UPS power-chute software's capabilities (i.e. agent in OS, send IPMI command ), and the UPS's alerting interface (i.e. network card vs USB/serial) that will drive your configuration.

If you have a USB/serial only UPS, and virtualized environment (i.e. ESXi), then you typically deploy a powerchute virtual OVA appliance on the ESXi host that has a small Linux OS and power-chute agents.  See discussion at https://forums.apc.com/spaces/7/ups-management-devices-powerchute-software/forums/general/74975/smart-ups-2200-without-network-card-only-usb

Another discussion involving UPS network card: https://forums.apc.com/spaces/7/ups-management-devices-powerchute-software/forums/general/11953/using-network-shutdown-with-vmware-server

Other config options: https://forums.apc.com/spaces/7/ups-management-devices-powerchute-software/forums/general/82307/powerchute-business-v-network-shutdown-with-vm-workstation

Kirk...

[radzio2015]

Hello Kirk,

Thank you for your answer. Yes I know about Power Chute software however its very complicated to install it and make a good setup. I have two APC-UPS battery with only USB/serial. This software especially the Business Edition v10.x does not support VMware v 6.7 and USB connection. You must install this only via a serial. Frankly this software is piece of crap. The only option you have that is probably the best is to use Power Chute Network Showdown 4.3 but of course you have to buy a network management card for each UPS which is associated with spending min $250 for each of them. So like you see its not easy to do it.

That's why my question was about Cisco solution for standalone UCS server. I bought this server for almost $5000 and I am very disappointment that the CIMC does not have by default any option to setup at least UPS graceful shutdown.

[radzio2015]

Kirk,

By the way I studied the Cisco UCS C-Series CIMC relese 4.0 link below and there is a Power Profiles section but it included a generic description. Not really helpfully because it is the same version inside CIMC help and most importantly it does not have some kind of examples that will provide you to figure out what correct value can be entered for instance Failsafe Timeout field etc. Do you know where can I find some documents that will really help with this? 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c/sw/gui/config/guide/4_0/b_Cisco_UCS_C-series_GUI_Configuration_Guide_40.pdf

 

[Kirk J]

The power profile has to do with component power requirements and cooling.

The CIMC is not going to know what specific UPS is connected as there are multiple vendors and capabilities.

It is the job of the UPS to report what it's runtime is and what notification capabilities there are.

Usually customers with these non-enterprise UPSs that don't have network cards or the enterprise features, will end up connecting the UPS to a windows workstation, and configure scripts that shutdown various servers.

You really want to configure your guestVMs to shutdown at the guestVM OS level,not have the CIMC which has no connection or knowledge of the guestVMs to arbitrarily force a hypervisor shutdown.  The CIMC can be configured with IPMI, which has ability to powerup, shutdown, but again, that is your UPS that needs to be pushing the commands and would have to have the software agent running somewhere.

Kirk...

[radzio2015]

Hi Kirk,

Thanks for this info. I understand complete the concept. I know that the most important are VMs. But again in my opinion should be something built on CIMC by default for the first line of power protection/issue for the server itself. Some hardware or software damage could happen when suddenly the power is off, especially if it happen many times. That is why we have a UPS battery connected to server but without some settings its only a nice piece of power equipment, nothing more.    
Secondly I think that Cisco help documents should provide you with some kind of examples about how to setup the C-Server, CIMC the best practice configuration about the Power Profile etc, not just general description.
I am sorry. I may care a lot about details, but in my experience the devil is in the details. I just want to find the solution which will work really well...Anyway like I said previously probably the best solution is to install the NIC on the UPSs and setup the PowerChute Network Shutdown software on VMware Esxi host.  

Again Kirk, thank you for this discussion.