These days many entities use standalone software from a wide range of vendors to monitor and manage their uninterruptible power systems (UPSes), power distribution units (PDUs) as well as other critical power supply and environmental devices.

However, these tools often lack features and do not integrate well with other management resources, bringing further complexity and adding to the number of power-related administrative headaches that companies face today.

Power monitoring and management issues

Although no two businesses are exactly the same, their IT teams often have to deal with the same power monitoring and management issues. Luckily, the latest generation of intelligent, logical and complete power management solutions from Eaton can help them address these challenges more successfully.

Aggregating power quality device information

To make sure that all power quality systems are functioning properly, data centre managers must complete real-time status data from every device in their IT environment.

There are, however, many reasons why it’s difficult to get a consolidated view of power protection and distribution systems.

Most businesses today use alternative power solutions from a range of vendors, which are difficult to integrate. In addition, many older power management solutions are unable to monitor power quality systems outside the data centre in remote locations such as branch offices or edge environments.

Fortunately, today’s intelligent power management solutions help entities address these problems by providing a truly global view of their power quality infrastructure through a single console.

Protecting workloads during power outages

No power utility or power grid is infallible, and data centres are bound to experience power interruptions occasionally.

Lessening the impact of such incidents is among a data centre manager’s most important responsibilities.
UPSes offer crucial assistance by providing emergency backup power.
In the event a power outage exceeds the runtime of the UPS batteries, organisations must shut down affected servers promptly to prevent software corruption and data loss.
Today, however, many data centres have to carry out that process manually, forcing them to engage in a high-stakes race against time whenever they encounter a sustained loss of power.

Intelligent power management solutions help IT teams manage power outages more efficiently. For one, the latest power management solutions allow them to divide receptacles on their UPS hardware into separate load segments which can be monitored and administered on an individual level.

Maintaining reliability

The impact of a UPS failure can be catastrophic. However, most businesses today are still ill-equipped to pinpoint the red flags that could be signs of future trouble, such as degrading performance or batteries that are overheating.

Intelligent power management tools offer real-time notification of these issues as they occur, empowering teams to take control before a serious breakdown happens. Moreover, administrators can specify whether or not they wish to receive such alerts via e-mail, chat apps, and more.

For companies wishing to benefit from the power of analytics, these solutions collect and store enterprise-wide UPS performance data which can be used for reporting and analytics to get real business insights into overloaded systems, impending dangers, and more.

Remote administration

IT infrastructure today is more distributed than ever. Most enterprises have hybrid environments, made up of on-premise systems and a range of cloud solutions.

However, too many power management systems are unable to support more than one system at a time, whereas Eaton’s intelligent power management solutions can monitor and control network-enabled power devices regardless of where they are situated.

Tracking power quality assets

Because data centres are dynamic environments in which equipment is being added, removed and relocated all the time, IT managers often battle to maintain full and accurate records of how many power devices they have and where they are.

Intelligent power management solutions are able to simplify asset tracking by making it easy to record changes in a company’s power infrastructure, such as moves, additions and decommissions.

And because these tools now have visibility into every power system on the network, their asset-tracking abilities extend beyond the data centre to the cloud, and all the way to the edge.

Addressing the challenges

The legacy and poorly integrated power monitoring and management tools that many entities still depend on are unable to solve today’s most common and pressing power-related headaches.

Luckily, Eaton’s Intelligent Power Manager (IPM), brought to South Africa by Tarsus Distribution, brings a new generation of intelligent, logical and complete power management tools to the market — and ones that are far better equipped to help overcome these challenges. IPM comes in 3 editions – Understand, Manage and Optimize – to offer organisations more flexibility in choosing the right level of power management functions according to their size and needs.

By employing these systems, IT and data centre staff can view thorough information about network-enabled power and environmental systems, secure both physical and cloud environments during power outages, carry out proactive maintenance, and much more.