There is no doubt that power monitoring and management solutions have become more important in current times. Challenges such as load shedding and outages have had a major impact on the economy - especially in South Africa. When it comes to choosing the best solution, it can be challenging to know what to look for and what to consider. Choosing the best solution comes down to finding the solution that suits your specific needs, along with choosing one that can easily scale as your needs change.
Choosing The Best Power Monitoring And Management Solution
Power monitoring and management functionality are typically included in a variety of IT and facilities management systems. With that said, there is no single solution that is able to provide everything that data centres need to run UPSs and various other essential power components at peak capacity. These tasks are highly complex, yet they are critical in order to avoid downtime. To reduce the risk of downtime, a specialised system and a virtualisation management system is the best choice. These also require constant protection and expertise provided by remote power monitoring services in order to perform at their best. To avoid data centre power outages and resulting systems malfunction, it is important to select the right solutions for each specific environment.
Ultimately, choosing the best power monitoring and management solution comes down to knowing your application and requirements. There are a few ways to monitor and manage power devices or even the whole application infrastructure. Some potential options could include the following:
A single UPS can be managed with the help of an optional network card. This is the most effective option if you need to monitor and manage just one UPS instead of a larger number. Choose network cards that act as their own servers. This will enable the card to send email and text alerts, record event history and offer remote access to receive real-time status updates.
For UPS that is protecting services, look for a solution that allows you to schedule safe shutdowns. This will help to prevent the loss of data during an outage that lasts over a longer time frame. Ideally, you want a UPS with a network card and IPP as a shutdown agent. The IPP will communicate to the network card to register and receive alerts, beginning soft shutdown of IT systems in the event of an outage.
If you have multiple UPS installation system that spreads out across a network closet, business or campus, IPM is the best way to collect and manage all power devices, including UPS devices and other network-enabled systems.
Finally, virtualisation management can be done using network cards and IPM. This solution is a best-in-class tool that integrates power through virtualisation platforms. IPM shutdown agent management makes it easier to safely shut down virtualised services, even if they are in clusters. Live migrations can also be triggered in order to move virtual machines safely to available network services with no downtime and no risk of data breaches.
Once you have a better idea of your current system and your requirements, it will be much easier to choose the power monitoring and management solution that best suits your specific needs.