Protect your network against surges, brownouts, and spikes
A dangerous enemy lurks within the walls of almost every building. The
enemy--uncontrolled electricity--manifests as brownouts, power surges, power
failures, and line noise. Data loss from power failure and its corrupting
effects can cost a company time, money, and resources. Although proper data
backup is important, the continuous power a UPS offers can keep your business
running if power problems occur.
I tested Tripp Lite's 120V UPS, the Smart 2200 RM. This product is part of
the SmartPro Rackmount series. The Smart 2200 RM includes the UPS, cables, and
PowerAlert Plus software.
Easy Installation
The Smart 2200 RM was easy to set up. I plugged the UPS in, turned it on,
and waited for its internal battery to charge. I let it charge overnight and the
next morning. I plugged power strips into two of the six plugs on the back of
the unit. Each power strip had three Windows NT servers and monitors plugged
into it. I plugged one end of a nine-pin serial cable into the Smart LAN Primary
connector on the back of the UPS and connected the other end to COM 1 on my test
computer. Next, I installed PowerAlert Plus 9.0 from the CD-ROM. I accessed the WINNT subdirectory on the CD-ROM and double-clicked the Setup
program. The installation wizard prompted me to enter the type and model number
of the UPS and the COM port the UPS was connected to.
PowerAlert Plus
After the installation completed, I opened PowerAlert Plus from the Start
menu. The main menu contains two bar charts, Readings and Meters, that let
systems administrators monitor the UPS's I/O power and temperature.
You select from a pool of 15 readings, and you can display 7 readings
simultaneously. You can display 3 meters simultaneously, which you select from a
pool of 6. The default readings are model number, UPS mode, Battery Condition,
Battery Capacity, Load State, Tap State, and Receptacle State. To change these
options, click the bar you want to change. The Reading Configuration dialog box
appears with the 15 choices.
Some selections have settings you can customize. For example, the
Temperature option lets you insert minimum, maximum, and threshold numbers,
which adjust the bar charts. PowerAlert Plus supports remote UPS management if
the remote client and UPS-serviced system are on the same domain. You need to
install the client software on a computer that connects to the UPS's domain. I
installed the client on a test computer. I opened PowerAlert Plus from the Start
menu, clicked Remote, and then double-clicked the name of the server controller
for the UPS. After a few seconds, I connected to the PowerAlert Plus main
screen, from which I could manage the Smart 2200 RM. PowerAlert Plus lets
administrators shut down networks remotely.
Notification Tools
When a power failure occurs, the Smart 2200 RM's battery backup maintains
power to the unit and its connected machines. However, you need to know about
the power failure. You can set up multiple notification tools, such as paging,
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) messages, and broadcast messages to
selected systems across the network via PowerAlert Plus. To test the default
broadcast message, I pulled the UPS's plug to simulate a power failure. The
Smart 2200 RM immediately switched to battery operations, thereby maintaining
continuous power to my systems. About 6 seconds after the power failure,
PowerAlert Plus sent a broadcast message to the systems on the domain, stating
the UPS was on battery power. I plugged the Smart 2200 RM back into the wall,
and PowerAlert Plus sent a message indicating restored utility power.
Try It
The Smart 2200 RM and its PowerAlert Plus software supply efficient and
continuous power to systems and save you time and money. For protection against
unstable electricity, consider the Smart 2200 RM UPS and PowerAlert Plus.
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