Planned work, Thursday 7/29/10, Server hardware/software upgrade plan Options

[Imhotep]

Greetings,

I'll be taking the server offline from 07:00 to 11:00 EDT (11:00 - 15:00 GMT) on Monday, 26th July 2010 to install the latest version of the server operating system, database engine, security patches, and an UPS to help keep things running during short commercial power failures. Until installed and tested for this system's power consumption I won't know exactly how long it will last but I'm aiming for a 60-90 minute buffer. The UPS combined with it's software will help prevent database corruption in the event of the power going out because the system will be able to gracefully shut itself off instead of just dying during a power failure.

Apologies in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

I

[Imhotep]

Heyo.

Yep, UPSs are neat boxes that do some cool things. Basically they're a big battery that puts out 120V (in the US) if the normal power fails. They also act like a buffer to condition the power going out to whatever is attached to it (prevents high or low voltage, momentary drops like when the AC or microwave kicks in, that kind of thing) which helps reduce wear and tear on the power supplies attached to it, and will protect the attached equipment from being zapped through the power lines by lightning strikes and stuff. They also have circuitry that monitors the battery state and can communicate to a computer when the battery gets low so it can turn itself off properly before the power runs out.

For those interested in the tech stuff the specific unit I'm waiting on is an APC Smart-UPS XL 2200VA unit. I've picked that one based on the server's wattage (about 450 watts). http://www.apc.com/products/resource/inclu...e_sku=SUA2200XL

The cool thing about that base module is that you can keep attaching extra batteries to it, so if it doesn't last long enough by itself just keep adding battery packs until it does. We should get around 1 hour as-is, but I'll do a load and runtime test after everything's put together and know better then. For the most part that should prevent power related downtime, I don't think there's been no power for more than an hour in a long time.

Later all!