Servers with redundant power supplies

[Gene Foraker]

Ian, we were talking more about a disaster situation where you might move a minimal amount of equipment to a secure location, either in your building or maybe even off site at a temporary location.   There is voltage loss for long runs of cable and tables where you can look up the voltage loss for a given wire size and length of run.   The voltage loss would increase the amp draw and lower the effective amps available to the device.   Given top quality 12 gauge or better cables, I would not run much beyond 150 to 200 feet.  I have access to the voltage loss tables for 12 volt, but not 120 volt.    Second story would not be a problem at all if you can get a nearby window open.

For supplying power to existing multi-server locations and through out a multi-story building you likely need a commercial generator running on either diesel or natural gas.

Phone systems can run for hours on a simple UPS, but if we are talking a disaster where power lines are down for long, then I'd guess phone and internet lines to be down also.   You can set up the phones to be forwarded to cell phones by your phone provider.   Internet would have to be wireless.

Addition - I just found several voltage drop calculators:

http://www.csgnetwork.com/voltagedropcalc.html

http://genuinedealz.com/voltage-drop.html

[Ian Blundell]

We had a power outage recently.  A storm on Saturday at 8pm took down a pole and the power to our complex along with lots of others in the state.  On Sunday when the power company hadn't even been out to identify the problem never mind give us an estimate on when we would get power back we declared a disaster with Agility and they arranged to send us a generator.  A hugh generator arrived Monday lunchtime but because Hertz screwed up it wasn't up and running (with a couple of big extension cables and spider boxes till late in the afternoon.  We did get all of the servers and about a dozen workstations up and running.  That is when we discovered that equipment in the basement needed power for our T1 phone & data lines, along with the cable & FiOS internet connections to work.  We did have calls forwarded to our 4 backup POTS lines but were unable to do little more than explain the situation and take messages.  The power came back up on Monday evening so we only got a couple of hours use out of the generator.
I finally managed to get an electrician to give me a quote on installing a power transfer switch so that the generator could just hook up to a switch on the outside of the building but I don't think that management is going to spring $13K for that option.  The alternative is to have an electrician come out (if we can get one if there is a wider area-wide problem) to hardwire the generator into the main power supply in the basement after Agility deliver the generator (Agility will help us find an electrician if we can't get a local one but that will only add to the delays).
We are looking at various options to get us through the first couple of days if we are out of power but the building is still OK.  Having one or more smaller generators on hand to get the minimal amount of equipment up & running is one of the options we are looking at.

[Jeff Zylstra]

$13 K for a power transfer hookup?  Wow!  We spent less than that for our generator and power transfer switch!  It's just a 25KW single phase Generac generator that runs on natural gas, but it works fine for us.  Our power in the building is divided into 4 different breaker boxes - 2 for each side of the building.  Rather than feeding individual circuits, the power transfer switch feeds 2 of the 4 breaker boxes.  The other side of the office isn't a mission critical operation, so they're on their own for power.   You may want to find out if dealing with it on a circuit by circuit basis is what is causing that quote to be so expensive.

[Gene Foraker]

$13 K for a power transfer hookup?  Wow!  We spent less than that for our generator and power transfer switch!  It's just a 25KW single phase Generac generator that runs on natural gas, but it works fine for us.  Our power in the building is divided into 4 different breaker boxes - 2 for each side of the building.  Rather than feeding individual circuits, the power transfer switch feeds 2 of the 4 breaker boxes.  The other side of the office isn't a mission critical operation, so they're on their own for power.   You may want to find out if dealing with it on a circuit by circuit basis is what is causing that quote to be so expensive.

At the very least get some alternate quotes from other sources.   Every area has at least several companies who sell and install permanent generators.   Call them and ask who the electrical firm is which installs the transfer.   Make sure they understand that it is not an automatic standby installation such as needed by a hospital.

[Jeff Zylstra]

$13 K for a power transfer hookup?  Wow!  We spent less than that for our generator and power transfer switch!  It's just a 25KW single phase Generac generator that runs on natural gas, but it works fine for us.  Our power in the building is divided into 4 different breaker boxes - 2 for each side of the building.  Rather than feeding individual circuits, the power transfer switch feeds 2 of the 4 breaker boxes.  The other side of the office isn't a mission critical operation, so they're on their own for power.   You may want to find out if dealing with it on a circuit by circuit basis is what is causing that quote to be so expensive.

At the very least get some alternate quotes from other sources.   Every area has at least several companies who sell and install permanent generators.   Call them and ask who the electrical firm is which installs the transfer.   Make sure they understand that it is not an automatic standby installation such as needed by a hospital.

Ours actually is an automatic standby as the generator senses the lack of power and automatically starts itself and automatically transfers power from the utility company inputs to the generator.  I think the electrical hookup came to around $1,200 and the generator was about $10-11K.