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Shutdown
In PowerChute Business Edition, shutdowns can be initiated in four ways:
- Through an event occurring, see Event Configuration.
- Using a schedule, see Scheduled Shutdown.
- By manually shutting down your system, see Shutdown Now.
- By manually shutting down an outlet, see Outlet Control.
Both the Console and Agent components of PowerChute can perform these shutdowns.
Shutdowns can also be initiated from “outside” PowerChute, that is, from the Network Management Card (NMC) or manually through the UPS LCD.
Initial Setup
This option guides you through a series of screens that enable you to complete your shutdown configuration.
You can select this menu option at any time but this screen displays automatically until you have confirmed which outlet group is supplying power to the server hosting the PowerChute Agent (which displays on the Outlet Setup screen).
The configuration screens are listed below in their display order. You can also access these screens individually at any time.
Shutdown Settings
This screen summarizes your shutdown configuration and also enables you to configure some steps of the shutdown sequence. (This screen is also part of the shutdown configuration accessible through Initial Setup).
The summary includes timing and delays, with the “base time” being the occurrence of the Power Failed event. Note also that when load shedding is enabled, a warning is displayed at the bottom of this screen (see Load Shedding).
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The options chosen on this screen can affect the configuration of events, set up in Event Configuration. This can include which events are selected to cause a shutdown. Read the other sections below for further information.
See also:
Power Failure Configuration
The Power Failure Configuration options define the response when a power problem causes the UPS to switch to battery operation.
- Immediately initiates a shutdown as soon as a Power Failed event indicates that the UPS switched to battery power.
- After UPS has been on battery for initiates a shutdown when the UPS has been operating on battery power for the period of time configured here.
See Time on Battery Threshold Exceeded on the Event Configuration screen.
- At runtime limit configures the Low Battery event to shut down; this is viewable on the Event Configuration screen.
The Low Battery event is generated when battery runtime falls below the number of seconds you set here.
The Low Runtime Warning event is generated when battery runtime falls below the combined time configured for Application and Operating System shutdown: see the Operating System and Application Shutdown section of this screen.
Note that this Low Runtime Warning event does not display on the Event Configuration screen as it is not configurable (because it always causes a shutdown).
When you select different radio button options here, the displayed summary information on this screen (under the Shutdown Summary heading) changes.
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A. If you use the PowerChute Console, you can define a default, universal setting using the Power-Protection Strategy setting in the configuration profile.
B. When any of the Outlet group turns off when check boxes on Load Shedding are selected, this can impact how this screen works. A warning displays on this screen to inform you of this.
Power Failure Configuration and Shutdown on Event Configuration
Choosing one of the four Power Failure Configuration options on Shutdown Settings (discussed above) works interactively with the Event Configuration Shutdown check boxes for different events.
You can see this by selecting a radio button option here, pressing Apply, and going to the Event Configuration screen to note the differences.
This is also true in reverse: changing a Shutdown check box for an event in Event Configuration can change which radio button option is selected here on Shutdown Settings.
This table summarizes the interaction:
For example, if you choose Immediately here and apply it, you will see in the Power Failed row of Event Configuration that the Shutdown check box has been selected automatically.
And if you then clear the Shutdown check box for the Power Failed event of Event Configuration, apply it, and return here to Shutdown Settings, the Immediate option will NOT be the selected option.
Interactivity in shutdown durations
The value for Time for operating system to shut down on this Shutdown Settings screen displays as a read-only field on the Outlet Sequence screen, see OFF sequence.
Another field on this Shutdown Settings screen, Time required for command file to run under Operating System and Application Shutdown, interacts with the Command File Execution Duration field for the Shutdown Starting event on Event Configuration. When they are changed, these fields automatically update each other.
(Note that the Time required for command file to run field only displays on Shutdown Settings when you have chosen a command file).
Scheduled Shutdown
Use this option to view and create scheduled shutdowns. (This screen is also part of the shutdown configuration accessible through Initial Setup).
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See Outlet Sequence for information on setting up delays and sequencing in shutdowns.
Viewing and creating scheduled shutdowns
The calendar view is by month. Move from month to month by clicking on the arrow buttons on the top left. Click on the today button beside the arrow buttons to make today the highlighted date.
You can schedule a shutdown to:
A schedule that displays in red or with a red outline indicates one of the following:
- The scheduled shutdown is due to run within ten minutes. At this point, you cannot edit a schedule though you can cancel it. (The word Pending also displays).
- The schedule can’t be run: something has happened since you created the scheduled shutdown. For example, you might have changed the outlet providing power to the PowerChute Agent (see Outlet Setup).
You should edit or delete this schedule, see the section directly below.
See also:
Creating and editing schedules
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Ensure that your local time settings (timezone, date, and time) are correct.
We recommend that you don't create schedules from a Web user interface in a different time zone.
To create a schedule, click on a date in the main calendar view, and the Scheduled Shutdown dialog displays. Fill in the fields. The start date is always the date you clicked in the calendar and can’t be changed here, though you can change the start time.
If you select a Main Outlet Group to shut down, its Switched Outlet Groups are automatically selected here also. (A Main Outlet Group always turns off its Switched Outlet Groups before it turns off, see Outlet Sequence).
Click OK and the schedule displays back on the calendar view. You can enter as many schedules as you like during a session and they all display in the calendar. However, they are NOT saved until you press the Apply button.
To change or delete an entry, click on the scheduled shutdown in the main calendar view and the Scheduled Shutdown dialog displays with the current details. Change any field value as necessary and choose OK. Or choose the Delete button to erase it from the calendar view.
A schedule is removed from the calendar after it runs.
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A scheduled shutdown starts with the shutdown being initiated, and ends with the turn-on command. That is, the schedule duration does not include the turn-on delays but they are implemented. See Outlet Sequence.
Moving and resizing schedules
You can move a schedule in the calendar view by clicking and dragging. However, you can’t copy a schedule.
You can expand a schedule into a future date, but not into a past date. Expanding can save you time because you don’t need to open the Scheduled Shutdown dialog.
To expand in the calendar view, hover the mouse pointer over the right edge of the schedule until you see the double-headed arrow, and click and drag.
Overlapping scheduled shutdowns
Two overlapping scheduled shutdowns have some or all of their timing in common.
PowerChute Business Edition uses criteria to ensure that the overlapping schedules you enter make sense, as well as actually being possible to run.
To achieve this, PowerChute prevents the creation of some overlapping schedules and enforces priorities and rules, as outlined in Guidelines for running overlapping schedules.
Guidelines for running overlapping schedules
If schedules overlap when they have one outlet group in common, then only ONE schedule is actually run.
How does PowerChute decide which one is run? By using this logic:
The starting and ending times of the schedules are irrelevant in this.
For example, see the graphic, showing two overlapping schedules which both shut down the outlet called “Main Server”. Even though it begins later, the “Once off with Main Server” schedule has priority over the “Weekly for Main Server” schedule, and it is the only schedule which will run.
Prioritizing once-off schedules enables you to schedule a unique shutdown like a public holiday.
Prioritizing weekly over daily schedules enables you to shut down at the weekend, while maintaining daily scheduled shutdowns.
Daylight savings and scheduled shutdowns
Don’t schedule a shutdown to start or finish during a Spring daylight savings “transition hour”.
The transition hour means the skipped hour when daylight savings commences in Spring.
Outlet Sequence
The Outlet Sequence screen enables you to configure your outlet groups to turn off and on in a specific sequence during a shutdown. (This screen is also part of the shutdown configuration accessible through Initial Setup).
Additionally, you can choose whether outlet groups should automatically turn back on after a shutdown. (By default, they turn on).
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The delays on this screen apply to all shutdowns whether initiated by a power event, a scheduled shutdown, or manually by a user.
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Important: The Load Shedding settings impact these on the Outlet Sequence screen page.
Examples of how you might use this screen
You configure the Off Sequencing of your outlet groups by specifying the turn-off delays of individual outlet groups.
An example of this usage is in electronic “Point of sale” transactions, where it is essential to ensure that all the front office equipment has been gracefully shut down before the back office equipment shuts down also. This safeguards the accuracy of the sales transaction data.
Similarly, On Sequencing is achieved by delaying the turning on of individual outlet groups. This applies when your system is starting up initially or on the return of AC utility power after an outage.
You might use on sequencing to avoid a temporary overload if all the devices connected to your UPS try to turn on at the same time. Another use might be to ensure that certain equipment, such as network switch devices, turns on before other equipment, such as servers, which need the network switch in order to communicate.
Understanding the usage of outlet groups can be facilitated by thinking of them as separate UPS devices in their functionality, or “virtual UPS devices”.
Using the graph and common fields
The graph at the top of this Outlet Sequence screen shows a timeline of delays, turn offs, and turn ons, for each outlet group included in a shutdown.
Each outlet group has its own row in the graph, with the outlet group name on the same row, to the right. The outlet group supplying power to the PowerChute Agent is designated by the PowerChute logo,
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Time, in minutes and seconds, is measured along the bottom of the graph. The selected outlet group has a green border in the graph.
Move your pointer over each section in the graph to display text with information on time values for that outlet group.
View and edit the turn off and turn on values in individual fields lower down on the screen.
To move between outlets, you can either click on a different row in the graph, or select a different tab.
Choosing which individual outlet groups to turn off in a shutdown
At the top of each area under the tabs, a message states whether the selected outlet group turns off during a shutdown. The outlet group supplying power to the PowerChute Agent always turns off during a shutdown, so This outlet group is included in a turn-off sequence always displays under that tab.
What displays here for other outlet groups depends on which type of outlet group — Main or Switched — supplies power to the server that the PowerChute Agent is protecting. The different set-ups are discussed below.
Note: On Smart-UPS devices, any outlet group labelled Group 1, Group 2, is a Switched Outlet Group. Any unlabelled outlet group is a Main Outlet Group. (Some devices have no Main Outlet Group).
- If your UPS has a Main Outlet Group and it supplies power to the PowerChute Agent, then all outlet groups will automatically turn off. (When turning off, a Main Outlet Group always turns off all the Switched Outlet Groups).
- If you use a Switched Outlet Group to supply power to the server with the PowerChute Agent, then that server automatically turns off in a shutdown; the Main Outlet Group has a check box Turn this outlet group off enabling you to choose whether or not to turn the group off.
- If you have only Switched Outlet Groups, then the group supplying power to the PowerChute Agent always shuts down and ALL other groups have a choice of whether to be shut down or not.
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When the Turn this outlet group off check box displays, and you clear the box, then the outlet group disappears from the timeline graphic.
Deciding on delay times for individual outlet groups
You can set delay times for both turning OFF an outlet group and turning it back ON with the Time for outlet group to turn off and Time before outlet group turns on fields respectively.
OFF sequence
Any Main Outlet Group can only turn off AFTER all the Switched Outlet Groups are off.
The outlet group supplying power to the PowerChute Agent has these possible turn-off delay times:
- Time for other applications to shut down: this value represents a duration for applications like Siebel and Microsoft SQL to gracefully shut down and for any command file to run.
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This is a read-only value here. In many circumstances, it derives from Time required for command file to run on Shutdown Settings.
However, if you configure ANY individual shutdown event to use a greater command file running time, then that is displayed here instead. (You configure this on Event Configuration).
See also the Interactivity in shutdown durations.
- Total time for <outlet group name> to turn off: This displays when the PowerChute Agent outlet group is also the Main Outlet Group.
The field shows the greatest length of time configured for the other outlets groups to turn off, in the Turn outlet group off after field. (Any Main Outlet Group has to wait for the Switched Outlet Groups to turn off first).
- Time for operating system to shut down: this value is configured on the Shutdown Settings screen.
As indicated in the bullets above, any outlet group other than the group supplying power to the PowerChute Agent has this field: Turn outlet group off after.
ON sequence
When turning on, any Main Outlet Group turns on first, and its delays must have expired before the Switched Outlet Groups turn on.
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The “stay off” times and “turn on” delays are separate concepts and values; the discussion below should make this more obvious.
All configured Switched Outlet Groups receive the command to start the turn-on process at the same time: their different delays can vary their actual turn on.
The following fields are present for all outlet groups, Main or Switched:
- Outlet group stays off for a minimum of: Regardless of any other outlet group, the individual group always stays off for at least the amount of time specified here.
Note: A Main Outlet Group cannot start its turn on until the Switched Outlet Groups have finished their stay-off delay times.
- Minimum battery runtime required before outlet group turns on: Inserting a value in this field ensures that the outlet group does not turn on unless the UPS can support the load on this outlet group for this amount of time.
- Use this additional delay to sequence outlet group turn-on: Entering different delay values in this field causes the sequencing of turn ons. See the different possibilities below. Placing the mouse pointer over the different graph rows can make this more obvious.
- You have a UPS with Switched Outlet Groups only:
Their individual Use this additional delay...delay times start to count down simultaneously.- You have a UPS with both Main and Switched Outlet Groups:
On the Main Outlet Group, the turn on begins after the minimum stay-off times for all outlet groups have expired and its own Use this additional delay... time has elapsed, in that order.
On the Switched Outlet Groups, after the Main Outlet Group is turned on, their individual Use this additional delay... delay times begin to count down.- Waiting for other outlet groups is a non-editable value that shows how long a group must wait for other outlet groups before starting its own Use this additional delay... delay time. It does not always have a value. (Move your pointer over the graph rows to understand this concept in practice). It can be derived from several factors:
Load Shedding
Load shedding enables you to specify conditions to turn off power to individual Switched Outlet Groups.
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See Shutdown Now for information on manually turning off outlet groups with immediate effect.
An example of using this load shedding option would be for turning off non-critical loads like monitors when the UPS is running on battery or is overloaded. This would preserve the battery charge and the runtime for essential loads.
Another example would be to disable an automatic restart after an overload in order to investigate the cause of the overload before turning the outlet group back on.
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Load shedding is available for UPS devices with Switched Outlet Groups but NOT for a Main Outlet Group. If your UPS has no Switched Outlet Groups, then the menu item does not display.
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Important: The Load Shedding settings impact those on the Outlet Sequence page! You should clear the top three check boxes if you don't want to use load shedding.
If you have more than one Switched Outlet Group, click on the relevant tab.
When any check box is selected under the Outlet group turns off when heading, and the individual condition is met, then that outlet turns off. That is, it is NOT necessary for all three conditions to be met to have the outlet group turn off.
The UPS determines when an overload event occurs, see Overload.
If you have selected the UPS Overload condition exists check box and an overload occurs which turns off the outlet group, it might not be possible to turn the outlet group back on without first clearing the check box.
As displayed under Associated actions, you can enable two actions to occur when load shedding turns off an outlet group.
- The Use Turn Off Delay value is derived from Outlet Sequence.
- You can configure an outlet group to restart by selecting Turn on outlet group automatically when AC utility power returns.
Outlet Control
The Control Outlet Groups screen shows you the name and present status of each outlet group on your UPS. In addition you can specify actions to occur immediately by choosing from lists in the drop-down boxes.
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No actions are available for the Main Outlet Group unless all Switched Outlet Groups are turned off, that is, their status here is displayed as Off.
The possible types of status for each outlet group are:
To choose an action for an outlet group, select it from the drop-down box and click Apply. These actions include rebooting which is useful for bringing unresponsive equipment back into operation. The Off action can be used to prevent other people from adding unauthorized equipment to a UPS.
The available actions are below, (see also Outlet Sequence):
- Off with Delay - turn off the outlet group power while enforcing the configured delays.
- Off Immediately - turn off the outlet group power without any delays.
- Shut down with Delay, AC restart - turn off the outlet group while enforcing the configured delays; if AC utility power subsequently returns, the outlet group will restart, with configured delays.
- Shut down Immediately, AC restart - turn off the outlet group without any delays; if AC utility power subsequently returns, the outlet group will restart, with configured delays.
- Reboot with Delay - turn off and restart the outlet group while enforcing all the configured turn-off and turn-on delays.
- Reboot Immediately - turn off immediately; restart the outlet group with the configured delays.
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Note: Setting the UPS LCD to read-only and turning off the outlet group with the PowerChute Agent will necessitate a UPS reboot to turn the outlet group back on. See UPS LCD is Read-Only and the table footnote.
Shutdown Now
Use the Shutdown Now screen to initiate a shutdown sequence, either immediately or within fifteen minutes. You can also control how and when the UPS turns on after the shutdown.
The screen can be used as a quick alternative to scheduling a once-off shutdown. In addition, it gives you the option of manually turning on power to the UPS after a shutdown.
UPS Shutdown Type With both of these options in this drop-down box — Delayed Wakeup and Manual Restart — the turn-off delays you have set up on Outlet Sequence are observed.However, the turn-on delays are observed with Delayed Wakeup but they are NOT observed with Manual Restart. Wakeup Delay This field displays only when you choose Delayed Wakeup.Use it to specify the amount of time the UPS will remain turned off.
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Use the Cancel Pending Shutdown button on this screen if you change your mind about shutting down. It displays on this screen before the shutdown commences.
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v9.0.4, v9.2.1
Last Updated: July 25, 2016
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