[H-GEN] Backups [was U.P.S]

Greg Black gjb at gbch.net
Mon Sep 16 20:13:30 EDT 2002


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Robert Brockway wrote:

| Make sure there is support for your OS.  I've seen at least one UPS that
| claimed unix support in the documentation but nothing could be found
| anywhere on the net to support this ascertion.  This was not an APC UPS.

When I started using APC units, they did not support anything
non-Microsoft and were very unfriendly with documentation.
After a lengthy process with an NDA, they then faxed me some of
the pages of their doco and I had to squeeze each page out of
them one by one.  Since they refused to let me have either the
table of contents or the index, it was pretty hard to guess all
the pages I needed :-(

However, writing suitable software is not rocket science and it
did not take long to develop something that worked a treat.  At
a later time, a US customer of mine who had a lot more clout
with APC (having about $US1M worth of APC UPS equipment) sent me
a copy of the full documentation and that allowed me to refine
my software.

Of course, these days there are plenty of free software packages
that talk to most brands of UPS equipment, including APC.

As for APC reliability, my home UPS had a battery die after
about four years.  The new battery has been in for about two
years and is now causing the UPS to signal constant battery
failure warnings (which wake my wife in the middle of the night,
much to her annoyance).  Oddly enough, when I yank the power
cord, the UPS does a fine job of keeping the various machines
that are connected to it running -- so I haven't got around to
fixing/replacing it yet.

Greg

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