Does anybody make good UPS units anymore?

Our experience with Liebert has been very good, having owned them since 2002. They even tickle me when it's time to replace batteries. Ours are 10kva and 16kva units.

Remember UPS units are for short term use - covering power blips and giving you time to shut down gracefully (30 minutes or so). We've got a generator for longer term outages.

Bill Betlej

Mary Baldwin College

Posted by: bbetlej on January 2, 2013

Our data center is covered with a couple larger Liebert systems. The older unit, an 8 kva system which will be replaced this summer, has been in place since the late 90's. I have been very pleased with their performance. These units are backed up by a generator, so their design is only to be used until the generator is up to speed....a few minutes at most. The last time I looked the projected runtime on this system is only 15-20 min based on the current load. If the generator doesn't automatically start, we've got problems......that happened once,it wasn't fun

Dan

Dan Wasson

Director Systems & LAN Management

Northwestern Michigan College

231-995-1164

dwasson@nmc.edu

Posted by: DWasson on January 2, 2013

Hi Charlie

We have had similar results, but last week we had evidence that the power coming into the buildings may be the issue. After a brief outage quite a few circuit breakers tripped in multiple buildings. This seems to indicate a problem that may be at the root of issues we have had with UPS longevity. Our Facilities folks are investigating; I will post the results when these are available.

Regards

Gary

On Jan 2, 2013 8:50 AM, "Charlie Prothero" <Charlie.Prothero@keystone.edu> wrote:

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero
Chief Information Officer

Keystone College
Information Technology Building

One College Green
P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: ghammon on January 3, 2013

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: keystone on January 2, 2013

Charlie, we have an older Liebert that works well but is expensive to maintain. One of our colleges purchased a modular UPS , an Eaton Blade UPS solution from Y and S Technologies that they like. I am not sure they have had it long enough to experience any issues with it.

Julie

Julie Ouska

CIO/VP, Information Technology

Colorado Community College System

(720) 858-2781

julie.ouska@cccs.edu

From: Charlie Prothero <Charlie.Prothero@KEYSTONE.EDU>
Reply-To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 6:50 AM
To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Subject: [CIO] Does anybody make good UPS units anymore?

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: jouska on January 2, 2013

Our data center is covered with a couple larger Liebert systems. The older unit, an 8 kva system which will be replaced this summer, has been in place since the late 90's. I have been very pleased with their performance. These units are backed up by a generator, so their design is only to be used until the generator is up to speed....a few minutes at most. The last time I looked the projected runtime on this system is only 15-20 min based on the current load. If the generator doesn't automatically start, we've got problems......that happened once,it wasn't fun

Dan

Dan Wasson

Director Systems & LAN Management

Northwestern Michigan College

231-995-1164

dwasson@nmc.edu

Posted by: DWasson on January 2, 2013

Hi Charlie

We have had similar results, but last week we had evidence that the power coming into the buildings may be the issue. After a brief outage quite a few circuit breakers tripped in multiple buildings. This seems to indicate a problem that may be at the root of issues we have had with UPS longevity. Our Facilities folks are investigating; I will post the results when these are available.

Regards

Gary

On Jan 2, 2013 8:50 AM, "Charlie Prothero" <Charlie.Prothero@keystone.edu> wrote:

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero
Chief Information Officer

Keystone College
Information Technology Building

One College Green
P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: ghammon on January 3, 2013

Charlie,

We are in an area prone to power issues. We have been using Liebert UPS units for many years and have found then very reliable and proactive when battery replacements are needed. We have found that pricing through Dell to be very competitive for these units. They do well until our generator comes online and we have see this in action several times over the past few years.

Curtis

Posted by: cdwhite on January 3, 2013

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: keystone on January 2, 2013

Charlie, we have an older Liebert that works well but is expensive to maintain. One of our colleges purchased a modular UPS , an Eaton Blade UPS solution from Y and S Technologies that they like. I am not sure they have had it long enough to experience any issues with it.

Julie

Julie Ouska

CIO/VP, Information Technology

Colorado Community College System

(720) 858-2781

julie.ouska@cccs.edu

From: Charlie Prothero <Charlie.Prothero@KEYSTONE.EDU>
Reply-To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 6:50 AM
To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Subject: [CIO] Does anybody make good UPS units anymore?

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: jouska on January 2, 2013

Message from sblanton@pdx.edu

I have experienced quite a few similar issues over the last 5 - 10 years. Seems that the U in UPS is no longer applicable.

Posted by: listserv-anon on January 2, 2013

I've started calling them "IPS"s. We recently bought a Mitsubishi, in part because it was time to look beyond the box. It came highly recommended (for what that's worth) but we haven't had it long enough to see how it holds up.

Happy new year!

Ethan

——
Ethan Benatan, Ph.D.
Vice President for IT & Chief Information Officer
503.699.6325

MARYLHURST UNIVERSITY
You. Unlimited.

Posted by: ethan.benatan on January 2, 2013

Our experience with Liebert has been very good, having owned them since 2002. They even tickle me when it's time to replace batteries. Ours are 10kva and 16kva units.

Remember UPS units are for short term use - covering power blips and giving you time to shut down gracefully (30 minutes or so). We've got a generator for longer term outages.

Bill Betlej

Mary Baldwin College

Posted by: bbetlej on January 2, 2013

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: keystone on January 2, 2013

Charlie, we have an older Liebert that works well but is expensive to maintain. One of our colleges purchased a modular UPS , an Eaton Blade UPS solution from Y and S Technologies that they like. I am not sure they have had it long enough to experience any issues with it.

Julie

Julie Ouska

CIO/VP, Information Technology

Colorado Community College System

(720) 858-2781

julie.ouska@cccs.edu

From: Charlie Prothero <Charlie.Prothero@KEYSTONE.EDU>
Reply-To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 6:50 AM
To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Subject: [CIO] Does anybody make good UPS units anymore?

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: jouska on January 2, 2013

Message from sblanton@pdx.edu

I have experienced quite a few similar issues over the last 5 - 10 years. Seems that the U in UPS is no longer applicable.

Posted by: listserv-anon on January 2, 2013

I've started calling them "IPS"s. We recently bought a Mitsubishi, in part because it was time to look beyond the box. It came highly recommended (for what that's worth) but we haven't had it long enough to see how it holds up.

Happy new year!

Ethan

——
Ethan Benatan, Ph.D.
Vice President for IT & Chief Information Officer
503.699.6325

MARYLHURST UNIVERSITY
You. Unlimited.

Posted by: ethan.benatan on January 2, 2013

Our experience with Liebert has been very good, having owned them since 2002. They even tickle me when it's time to replace batteries. Ours are 10kva and 16kva units.

Remember UPS units are for short term use - covering power blips and giving you time to shut down gracefully (30 minutes or so). We've got a generator for longer term outages.

Bill Betlej

Mary Baldwin College

Posted by: bbetlej on January 2, 2013

Our data center is covered with a couple larger Liebert systems. The older unit, an 8 kva system which will be replaced this summer, has been in place since the late 90's. I have been very pleased with their performance. These units are backed up by a generator, so their design is only to be used until the generator is up to speed....a few minutes at most. The last time I looked the projected runtime on this system is only 15-20 min based on the current load. If the generator doesn't automatically start, we've got problems......that happened once,it wasn't fun

Dan

Dan Wasson

Director Systems & LAN Management

Northwestern Michigan College

231-995-1164

dwasson@nmc.edu

Posted by: DWasson on January 2, 2013

Hi Charlie

We have had similar results, but last week we had evidence that the power coming into the buildings may be the issue. After a brief outage quite a few circuit breakers tripped in multiple buildings. This seems to indicate a problem that may be at the root of issues we have had with UPS longevity. Our Facilities folks are investigating; I will post the results when these are available.

Regards

Gary

On Jan 2, 2013 8:50 AM, "Charlie Prothero" <Charlie.Prothero@keystone.edu> wrote:

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero
Chief Information Officer

Keystone College
Information Technology Building

One College Green
P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: ghammon on January 3, 2013

Charlie,

We are in an area prone to power issues. We have been using Liebert UPS units for many years and have found then very reliable and proactive when battery replacements are needed. We have found that pricing through Dell to be very competitive for these units. They do well until our generator comes online and we have see this in action several times over the past few years.

Curtis

Posted by: cdwhite on January 3, 2013

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: keystone on January 2, 2013

Charlie, we have an older Liebert that works well but is expensive to maintain. One of our colleges purchased a modular UPS , an Eaton Blade UPS solution from Y and S Technologies that they like. I am not sure they have had it long enough to experience any issues with it.

Julie

Julie Ouska

CIO/VP, Information Technology

Colorado Community College System

(720) 858-2781

julie.ouska@cccs.edu

From: Charlie Prothero <Charlie.Prothero@KEYSTONE.EDU>
Reply-To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 6:50 AM
To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Subject: [CIO] Does anybody make good UPS units anymore?

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: jouska on January 2, 2013

Message from sblanton@pdx.edu

I have experienced quite a few similar issues over the last 5 - 10 years. Seems that the U in UPS is no longer applicable.

Posted by: listserv-anon on January 2, 2013

I've started calling them "IPS"s. We recently bought a Mitsubishi, in part because it was time to look beyond the box. It came highly recommended (for what that's worth) but we haven't had it long enough to see how it holds up.

Happy new year!

Ethan

——
Ethan Benatan, Ph.D.
Vice President for IT & Chief Information Officer
503.699.6325

MARYLHURST UNIVERSITY
You. Unlimited.

Posted by: ethan.benatan on January 2, 2013

Our experience with Liebert has been very good, having owned them since 2002. They even tickle me when it's time to replace batteries. Ours are 10kva and 16kva units.

Remember UPS units are for short term use - covering power blips and giving you time to shut down gracefully (30 minutes or so). We've got a generator for longer term outages.

Bill Betlej

Mary Baldwin College

Posted by: bbetlej on January 2, 2013

Our data center is covered with a couple larger Liebert systems. The older unit, an 8 kva system which will be replaced this summer, has been in place since the late 90's. I have been very pleased with their performance. These units are backed up by a generator, so their design is only to be used until the generator is up to speed....a few minutes at most. The last time I looked the projected runtime on this system is only 15-20 min based on the current load. If the generator doesn't automatically start, we've got problems......that happened once,it wasn't fun

Dan

Dan Wasson

Director Systems & LAN Management

Northwestern Michigan College

231-995-1164

dwasson@nmc.edu

Posted by: DWasson on January 2, 2013

Hi Charlie

We have had similar results, but last week we had evidence that the power coming into the buildings may be the issue. After a brief outage quite a few circuit breakers tripped in multiple buildings. This seems to indicate a problem that may be at the root of issues we have had with UPS longevity. Our Facilities folks are investigating; I will post the results when these are available.

Regards

Gary

On Jan 2, 2013 8:50 AM, "Charlie Prothero" <Charlie.Prothero@keystone.edu> wrote:

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero
Chief Information Officer

Keystone College
Information Technology Building

One College Green
P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: ghammon on January 3, 2013

Charlie,

We are in an area prone to power issues. We have been using Liebert UPS units for many years and have found then very reliable and proactive when battery replacements are needed. We have found that pricing through Dell to be very competitive for these units. They do well until our generator comes online and we have see this in action several times over the past few years.

Curtis

Posted by: cdwhite on January 3, 2013

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: keystone on January 2, 2013

Charlie, we have an older Liebert that works well but is expensive to maintain. One of our colleges purchased a modular UPS , an Eaton Blade UPS solution from Y and S Technologies that they like. I am not sure they have had it long enough to experience any issues with it.

Julie

Julie Ouska

CIO/VP, Information Technology

Colorado Community College System

(720) 858-2781

julie.ouska@cccs.edu

From: Charlie Prothero <Charlie.Prothero@KEYSTONE.EDU>
Reply-To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 6:50 AM
To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Subject: [CIO] Does anybody make good UPS units anymore?

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: jouska on January 2, 2013

Message from sblanton@pdx.edu

I have experienced quite a few similar issues over the last 5 - 10 years. Seems that the U in UPS is no longer applicable.

Posted by: listserv-anon on January 2, 2013

I've started calling them "IPS"s. We recently bought a Mitsubishi, in part because it was time to look beyond the box. It came highly recommended (for what that's worth) but we haven't had it long enough to see how it holds up.

Happy new year!

Ethan

——
Ethan Benatan, Ph.D.
Vice President for IT & Chief Information Officer
503.699.6325

MARYLHURST UNIVERSITY
You. Unlimited.

Posted by: ethan.benatan on January 2, 2013

Our experience with Liebert has been very good, having owned them since 2002. They even tickle me when it's time to replace batteries. Ours are 10kva and 16kva units.

Remember UPS units are for short term use - covering power blips and giving you time to shut down gracefully (30 minutes or so). We've got a generator for longer term outages.

Bill Betlej

Mary Baldwin College

Posted by: bbetlej on January 2, 2013

Our data center is covered with a couple larger Liebert systems. The older unit, an 8 kva system which will be replaced this summer, has been in place since the late 90's. I have been very pleased with their performance. These units are backed up by a generator, so their design is only to be used until the generator is up to speed....a few minutes at most. The last time I looked the projected runtime on this system is only 15-20 min based on the current load. If the generator doesn't automatically start, we've got problems......that happened once,it wasn't fun

Dan

Dan Wasson

Director Systems & LAN Management

Northwestern Michigan College

231-995-1164

dwasson@nmc.edu

Posted by: DWasson on January 2, 2013

Hi Charlie

We have had similar results, but last week we had evidence that the power coming into the buildings may be the issue. After a brief outage quite a few circuit breakers tripped in multiple buildings. This seems to indicate a problem that may be at the root of issues we have had with UPS longevity. Our Facilities folks are investigating; I will post the results when these are available.

Regards

Gary

On Jan 2, 2013 8:50 AM, "Charlie Prothero" <Charlie.Prothero@keystone.edu> wrote:

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero
Chief Information Officer

Keystone College
Information Technology Building

One College Green
P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: ghammon on January 3, 2013

Charlie,

We are in an area prone to power issues. We have been using Liebert UPS units for many years and have found then very reliable and proactive when battery replacements are needed. We have found that pricing through Dell to be very competitive for these units. They do well until our generator comes online and we have see this in action several times over the past few years.

Curtis

Posted by: cdwhite on January 3, 2013

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: keystone on January 2, 2013

Charlie, we have an older Liebert that works well but is expensive to maintain. One of our colleges purchased a modular UPS , an Eaton Blade UPS solution from Y and S Technologies that they like. I am not sure they have had it long enough to experience any issues with it.

Julie

Julie Ouska

CIO/VP, Information Technology

Colorado Community College System

(720) 858-2781

julie.ouska@cccs.edu

From: Charlie Prothero <Charlie.Prothero@KEYSTONE.EDU>
Reply-To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 6:50 AM
To: CIO List <CIO@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
Subject: [CIO] Does anybody make good UPS units anymore?

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero

Chief Information Officer

Keystone College

Information Technology Building

One College Green

P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: jouska on January 2, 2013

Message from sblanton@pdx.edu

I have experienced quite a few similar issues over the last 5 - 10 years. Seems that the U in UPS is no longer applicable.

Posted by: listserv-anon on January 2, 2013

I've started calling them "IPS"s. We recently bought a Mitsubishi, in part because it was time to look beyond the box. It came highly recommended (for what that's worth) but we haven't had it long enough to see how it holds up.

Happy new year!

Ethan

——
Ethan Benatan, Ph.D.
Vice President for IT & Chief Information Officer
503.699.6325

MARYLHURST UNIVERSITY
You. Unlimited.

Posted by: ethan.benatan on January 2, 2013

Our experience with Liebert has been very good, having owned them since 2002. They even tickle me when it's time to replace batteries. Ours are 10kva and 16kva units.

Remember UPS units are for short term use - covering power blips and giving you time to shut down gracefully (30 minutes or so). We've got a generator for longer term outages.

Bill Betlej

Mary Baldwin College

Posted by: bbetlej on January 2, 2013

Our data center is covered with a couple larger Liebert systems. The older unit, an 8 kva system which will be replaced this summer, has been in place since the late 90's. I have been very pleased with their performance. These units are backed up by a generator, so their design is only to be used until the generator is up to speed....a few minutes at most. The last time I looked the projected runtime on this system is only 15-20 min based on the current load. If the generator doesn't automatically start, we've got problems......that happened once,it wasn't fun

Dan

Dan Wasson

Director Systems & LAN Management

Northwestern Michigan College

231-995-1164

dwasson@nmc.edu

Posted by: DWasson on January 2, 2013

Hi Charlie

We have had similar results, but last week we had evidence that the power coming into the buildings may be the issue. After a brief outage quite a few circuit breakers tripped in multiple buildings. This seems to indicate a problem that may be at the root of issues we have had with UPS longevity. Our Facilities folks are investigating; I will post the results when these are available.

Regards

Gary

On Jan 2, 2013 8:50 AM, "Charlie Prothero" <Charlie.Prothero@keystone.edu> wrote:

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a chance to get some R&R over the holidays. Things were quiet here until a UPS died and took out our phone system last Saturday. None of our other systems reported power issues, and that UPS is dead as a doornail. At the risk of sounding cliché, they don’t seem to make UPS units like they used to! We have had recent outages caused by three different mainstream (non-cheapo) UPS products. Strangely, these were newer ones, and from premium manufacturers. A few ancient Best/Ferrups ones that we still have kicking around seem to have unlimited life as long as they have good batteries. Is our experience here unique, perhaps due to bad power on campus, or have others had similar issues? Do any brands/models stand out as better choices than others, particularly for rural locations where the power grid is more exposed to nature’s whim? No sales contacts, please – looking for peer feedback here…

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie Prothero
Chief Information Officer

Keystone College
Information Technology Building

One College Green
P.O. Box 50 • La Plume, PA 18440-0200

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Posted by: ghammon on January 3, 2013

Charlie,

We are in an area prone to power issues. We have been using Liebert UPS units for many years and have found then very reliable and proactive when battery replacements are needed. We have found that pricing through Dell to be very competitive for these units. They do well until our generator comes online and we have see this in action several times over the past few years.

Curtis

Posted by: cdwhite on January 3, 2013

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Online Events

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Events for all Levels and Interests

Career Center

Leadership and Management Programs

Fellowships and Awards

Getting Involved

Jump Start Your Career Growth

Latest Topics

EDUCAUSE organizes its efforts around three IT Focus Areas

Join These Programs If Your Focus Is

From the Blogs

Find Others

Share Ideas

Get on the Higher Ed IT Map

2013 Strategic Priorities

Membership

Who We Are

Stay Informed

Uncommon Thinking for the Common Good™