Re: How long does a PWRDWNSYS restart(*no) actually take?

We installed a Natural Gas powered Generator 4 years ago.
the first year I tried to tweek a UPS monitor program...
We kept finding "what if" conditions, but found that from a UPS - Generator
perspective, they both were very reliable.
So I no longer have a monitor program...
Monthly Generator tests, Quarterly UPS testing/Diags.
We do have redundant power supplies, and I have them honed to 1) straight
Utility power... 2) UPS (after the utility power / Generator switch)....



On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 2:10 PM, DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

As long as your UPS can sync to a Generator you'll only see 'on Battery'
for a few seconds and then 'Utility power restored' as the generator digs
in. If you've chosen poorly and your UPS cannot sync to a generator then
you get 'on battery' followed sometime later by 'low battery' and
eventually darkness to the hum of the generator. :-(

As to your other questions, spot on. Even a generator isn't good 'forever'
it should be checked routinely while running for any leaks, fuel levels and
such.

Depending on the fuel there are filters in that space as well. Failure to
change them may allow the generator tests to succeed but under load it
shuts down as it can't get enough fuel. It really is mandatory to have a
proper maintenance contract with the generator company or you're just
hoping to get lucky!

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.

On 7/31/2017 3:03 PM, Musselman, Paul wrote:

A "power down" depends on what's running-- you need a process to start an
orderly shutdown ASAP.

Question for the wiring guys-- when the power goes out the UPS/battery
takes over. Then the generator kicks in. Do you get a different message
at each event? IE "System on battery." "System on generator." If the
system can't tell the generator from utility power, you'll never know you
have a problem other than a two messages, probably minutes apart: "System
on battery" / "Utility power restored."

A generator question-- does it have a 'low fuel' indicator in the
computer room, or does someone have to open the doors to the generator and
check a fuel gauge? Do you have a contract with a fuel company to deliver
fuel any time of the day or night and on weekends? How long does the
generator run on a full tank?

Does the generator kick on for a test once a week? How about routine
service for the generator, including load testing?

Once you figure out you have a power outage and the system must come
down, what will you do? I'd hold the jobqs to the batch subsystems first.
Heaven help the long-running jobs! Send messages to all interactive-type
jobs to sign off NOW! TFRJOB your session to QCTL, then you can end the
interactive subsystems so no new jobs can start.

You need to examine all of the subsystems and see how they should be
ended. PWRDWNSYS *IMMED should be a last resort-- IBM recommends gently
shutting down TCP/IP!

Do you run 'lights out' / unattended? Will your process shut things down
without human intervention? Will you be able to stop it in mid-stream if
the power comes back on? Will it be easier to complete a shutdown and IPL
the system, starting things up properly?


Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 7:17 AM, Jim Hawkins <jhawkins@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I have been tasked to write a program to monitor the UPS on our IBM
power
system. I found a good base program-so that is all good. We have a
generator
that is supposed to kick in within the 1st minute of a power failure. My
question is more of "what if the generator fails?" From my research, it
appears that the ups on the system will last for about 20 minutes.

We do an IPL each week (pwrdwnsys *immed restart(*yes)), (it is what it
is,
I'm not rocking the boat on this one, so save your breath). What I see
in
the log is entries indicating: this ended, that ended, etc. for about a
minute and a half, then nothing for 32 minutes when I see "Unattended
IPL
in
progress".

If the generator fails, I want to power down the system, but I am not
sure
how much time I have to wait. The last time we did a pwrdwnsys
restart(*no)
was 3 years ago when we had to replace the cache battery-and I don't
recall
that far back (lol).

I want the system to power down on my terms, not the terms of the UPS.
So,
good folks, how much time do I really have to power down, before my UPS
runs
out of batteries? (Yes, I will allocate a little extra for the
unexpected
and the fact the batteries are 7+ years old.) Just simply, at what
point is
the system powered off?

(I will be away from my email from noon today until next week)

TIA

Jim Hawkins

Programmer Analyst

Interkal LLC

Kalamazoo, MI

--

This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list
To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.

Please contact support@xxxxxxxxxxxx for any subscription related
questions.

Help support midrange.com by shopping at amazon.com with our affiliate
link: http://amzn.to/2dEadiD