recommended power shutdown software?

[Panache Support Enginee]

I manage a dozen HP Proliant servers, connected serially/redundantly to half a dozen HP UPSs of various sizes.

I have been advised by various local (japanese) HP staff abut how to monitor these UPSs and ensure servers are shut down gracefully in the even of a power outage, I am more confused than ever.

We used to use Lansafe III to shut down our servers, but when we recently replaced our older Compaq Proliants with more recent G2 and G3 models, we were told that using Rack and Power Manager (1.1) was the way to go about monitoring these new servers.

However, I have since discovered that RPM does not appear to include a function to gracefully shut down the servers in a graceful manner. While the utility appears to let you set shutdown delays and shutdown timings, it does not actually seem capable of shutting the servers down properly.

So now I wonder... Which of these products should I use? Our primary concern is that the servers (running almost exclusively Win2K) shut down gracefully in the event of a power outage. RPM's monitoring and notification functions are great, but without the ability to shut down the servers automatically, the utility pretty much is missing the main function we require.

So should I:
- stick with Lansafe III
- switch to HP Power Manager (if I can ever find it)
- use RPM and life with the dangers of a power outage
- switch to a third party utility?

Any help appreciated.

[Steve Tran]

Hello,

Here are some helpful steps:

1) Verify that the Compaq/HP UPSs that you have being supported by either HP Rack and Power Manager and/or HP Power Manager. You may find the support information from the Quickspecs for HPRPM page http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/power-protection/software/index.html and HPPM page at http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/power-protection/software/index.html
2) Use HPPM when you need to monitor one single UPS (serial/USB only, not networked) in a rack. HPRPM monitors multiple serial or network-attached UPSs within a rack or a datacenter.
3) See this posting regarding settings graceful shutdown, you need to uncheck the "Infinite" box. This is checked by default I believe. See http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=603579 for more details.
4) If the UPS is supported by either HPPM or HPRPM, I would recommend using one instead of LanSafe III which should only be used for legacy UPS products.

Thanks,
Steve

[Panache Support Enginee]

Thanks for the help.

Looks like I'll need to go with HPPM as HPRPM simply doesn't shut down gracefully.

Regards,

Michael

[Panache Support Enginee]

Thanks all, the HP PM software is really quite useful.