Power supply monitoring with PRTG
PRTG informs you about the status of your power systems
PRTG can monitor your Power Distribution Units (PDU) via SNMP
PRTG can monitor your
power consumption
Why the need for monitoring power?
Electrical and power systems, like monitoring, are often overlooked as being an important part of the infrastructure. A backup power system at a minimum in form of an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) is a must to keep your systems operational in the event of an outage. Most power outages are fairly short, about 75% are less than 20 minutes (Ref). For critical systems, a UPS should be able to keep you going for 30 minutes or more. This would allow you to get through most outages without interruption, also allow you enough time to start shutting down systems when the battery charge drops to a critical level.
A UPS combined with a generator for extended outages is desirable for critical systems, though often cost prohibitive. Unless you are monitoring your power systems, you may still be caught off guard and have systems go offline without a graceful shutdown.
Power conditioning device management
Most power systems, UPSs, Power Distribution Units (PDU) include management systems that allow them to be monitored. PRTG Network Monitor can keep you on top of the status of your power systems and informs you how they are performing. If your UPS support standard SNMP (RFC1628/UPS-MIB) is enabled, PRTG should detect them and create sensors to monitor their status.
PRTG sensors for UPS monitoring
How PRTG defines sensors
In PRTG, “sensors” are the basic monitoring elements. One sensor usually monitors one measured value in your network, e.g. the traffic of a switch port, the CPU load of a server, the free space of a disk drive. On average you need about 5-10 sensors per device or one sensor per switch port.
For generic UPSs, the PRTG sensors monitor (elements monitored varies based on what the manufacturer presents):
- Battery status (normal, low, depleted)
- Remaining runtime, time on battery
- Input/output voltage
- Input out-of-tolerance count (brown-out or high/low voltage events)
- Active alarm count
- Output source (normal, bypass, battery, [voltage] boost/reduce)
- Self-test result (pass, warning, error, aborted, etc. if supported)
A sneak peek at monitoring with PRTG
SNMP Traffic
SNMP APC Hardware sensor
Overview of all devices
PRTG sensors for PDU monitoring
SNMP stands for Simple Network Monitoring Protocol. Its usefulness in network administration comes from the fact that it allows information to be collected about network-connected devices in a standardized way across a large variety of hardware and software types. SNMP is a protocol for management information transfer in networks, for use in LANs especially, depending on the chosen version.
Read more
Power Distribution Units (PDU) often have a management interface as well. By enabling access through a protocol like SNMP, you can monitor many aspects of the health of the PDU itself, and often the power draw of each of the plugs which means you can also keep track of how much power each of your devices consumes over time.
PDUs usually presents information like (again depending upon manufacturer):
- Status
- Input/output voltage
- Input phase
- Socket/plug status (on/off)
- Socket/plug current
By using PRTG sensors or templates, you can create a sensor on your power equipment to keep track of status and performance. PRTG will alert you to power related events, outages and status of equipment. In addition, by selectively setting thresholds for warnings and errors, PRTG can also alert you to problems with batteries that need replacement or heavy loads where your batteries would not meet your runtime requirements.
A monitoring tool like PRTG should be part of your power backup and monitoring strategy. Monitoring and staying aware of the status of your power systems is crucial to reducing unplanned outages and help you achieve 100% uptime.
PRTG has a large complement of sensors that cover a wide range of devices, servers, and protocols. It allows you to stay on top of what is going on in your infrastructure 24/7. PRTG is a great tool to assist you achieving 100% uptime.
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Special sensors for monitoring APC UPS systems
APC by Schneider Electric is a common manufacturer of UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) systems. PRTG includes several options to monitor APC UPS systems. The sensor SNMP APC Hardware provides the most important standard values like battery capacity, voltage or temperature.
For more advanced monitoring, there are several custom sensors written by PRTG users that provide additional data such as a necessary battery replacement or the reason for the last failure.
If the APC system does not support SNMP, there is another custom sensor that can read out the most important values of the UPS using PowerShell. You can find information about this sensor in our Knowledge Base:
How can I monitor an APC UPS that does not support SNMP?
Find more about APC monitoring in this blog article (englisch).
“We can all work with greater peace of mind knowing
that our systems are constantly being monitored.”
Markus Puke, Network Administrator, Schüchtermann Klinik, Germany
Keep a constant eye on your UPS – even while on the go
PRTG is set up in a matter of minutes and can be used on a wide variety of mobile devices.
Want to read more about hardware monitoring?
Router monitoring
PRTG monitors your routers. In the event of error messages, high bandwidth use, or suspicious traffic, the notification system of PRTG automatically sounds the alarm. Learn more about router monitoring here.
Server room monitoring
PRTG ensures reliable monitoring of server rooms. Monitor temperature fluctuations, humidity, and power outages. More on server room monitoring.
Server monitoring
Whether you’re dealing with a web, database, or mail server: PRTG server monitoring lets you keep an eye on all the key values concerning the availability and performance of your servers. With PRTG, you will increase the stability of your IT infrastructure.
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The costs for a one-year PRTG license usually pay for themselves within a few weeks.
PRTG improves the reliability of your network
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PRTG: The multi-tool for sysadmins
Adapt PRTG individually and dynamically to your needs and rely on a strong API:- HTTP API: Access monitoring data and manipulate monitoring objects via HTTP requests
- Custom sensors: Create your own PRTG sensors for customized monitoring
- Custom notifications: Create your own notifications and send action triggers to external systems
- REST Custom sensor: Monitor almost everything that provides data in XML or JSON format
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PRTG |
Network Monitoring Software - Version 23.2.84.1566 (May 24th, 2023) |
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Hosting |
Download for Windows and cloud-based version PRTG Hosted Monitor available |
Languages |
English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese |
Pricing |
Up to 100 sensors for free (Price List) |
Unified Monitoring |
Network devices, bandwidth, servers, applications, virtual environments, remote systems, IoT, and more |
Supported Vendors & Applications |
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