I got a new toy today. It was kind of heavy @ 27.5 pounds. It doesn’t really do much, but it does give one some peace of mind. And it finally gave me the opportunity to try out one of the popular WHS add-ins that I have been unable to check out previously. If you didn’t look at the post picture or title, I would say read on to find out what I am talking about.
But since the picture and title kind of gives this topic away, just read on to take a closer look at GridJunction, the Windows Home Server Add-in for managing an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) Battery Backup System via the Windows Home Server Console
The UPS I am using? It is an APC BX900R. I purchased it at my local Best Buy for… $15.71. Being that it was on sale combined with the use a gift card, and a couple of Rewards Zone certificates, this turned out to be quite a cheap (inexpensive) toy!
Back to GridJunction. From my repetitive installation opening statement:
Installing the add-in is as simple as any other add-in. Copy the msi installer to your D:SoftwareAdd-ins folder, open the WHS Setting Window in the console and install the software from the Add-ins tab, as shown below.
Reopen the WHS console, click on the Console Settings option, and click on the GridJunction icon. This will bring you to the following window.
As I had just installed the UPS and GridJunction, there was not much (as in nothing) for GridJunction to report as Events in this tab. Moving over to the Actions tab brings up the following settings window, which is where you can configure the actions that GridJunction performs if the power goes out.
Moving over to the Hardware tab, presents you with following screen.
In my case, GridJunction recognized the APC model upon installation, so I submitted the info to GridJunction. A painless and hopefully helpful task to perform. If you purchase a UPS, decide to use GridJunction, and the 2 work together, please submit the info to GridJuction as a helpful service to the community.
When you click on the Hardware Monitor button, you will be presented with the following screen:
This is all cool and everything, but not much of a useful real time monitor in that when this window is open, that is all you can do: watch the graph. It might become a wee bit more useful if it could be opened as a separate window from the console, so that one could do other WHS tasks while monitoring the UPS.
Moving over to the Settings tab provides you with the following 2 options. Turn on whatever ones you wish to.
And finally, the About tab. I always like to see this kind of information and links provided. A very nice plus for GridJunction.
That’s it! Nothing real exciting here. Which is the way it should be for a program such is this. It should just work, which is what it does with the particular UPS I purchased.
Actually, that is not quite all there is. What happens when the power does go out? After all, who cares about any of the above options, screens and related information if nothing happens during a power outage. To simulate such an event, I simply pulled the power cord of the UPS from the wall. The result:
Immediate GridJunction/console reaction:
A few minutes later.
And a few minutes before the lights went out on my WHS and was gracefully shut down. Please note that I changed the default 50% power level to 90%. I do quite a bit of waiting on things to happen during some of these reviews. It was kind of nice to able to speed up the process just a bit!
There was one more message given, however, I could not capture it in the 5 second time frame required before the machine was put into shut down mode. Basically, it said the computer was going to be shut down in 5 seconds due to the power loss.
After plugging the UPS back into the wall, turning my WHS back on, and perusing back to the GridJunction settings screen gave the following Events that had happened.
The final topic to cover is use of scripts, which you can make use from the Actions tab. I did not write/test any scripts, but if you have a desire to any special exit commands during a shut down sequence, I would point you to 2 resources on the GridJunction website:
A Script Topic in the GridJunction forums.
If you need to make custom scripts, these 2 links should get you started.
And that is that. Is this an add-in for you? If you don’t have a UPS, the obvious answer is no. If you do have and GridJunction supports it:
It does exactly what it is intended to do. It is not an exciting add-in, but this type of utility does not require user interaction once setup. The only small gripe I have was mentioned earlier in regards to the real time monitoring graph. Not very useful if that all one can do from the console is watch this graph when it is opened.
In the end, if you do have a supported UPS, just get it, install it, configure it, and forget about it. You may never need to remember anything about it again. Until the lights go out. And before you do buy a UPS for your WHS, check out this link for a current list of supported UPS’s.
About the only other “gripe” I have is that the installed version expires April 29th. I hope the author has a “Final” release by then.
Author: Kentdome Technologies
Version Reviewed: 1.4.0.0 RC
Release: 04March2009
25. March 2009 at 7:43 am
Very nice and thorough; Thank you
25. March 2009 at 9:17 am
I might be being a bit naive, but what I believe this add-in misses is the ability to bring the server back online when power is restored?!
I’ve used APC UPS’s with the provided PowerChute software in the past, and this has done exactly that, and any similar functionality for GridJunction would be extremely welcome (especially if there’s a power cut whilst I’m away from home and unable to reboot my WHS when power’s restored!)
25. March 2009 at 3:56 pm
hmmm. OK. I uninstalled GridJunction. I installed PowerChute. Set it to shut down in 2 minutes after going on battery and unplugged the unit. 2 minutes later, PowerChute says it is putting computer into hibernation. I plug in the cord and within a minute, the APC is green again. I wait about 5 minutes. Nothing. I have to turn the computer back on myself, but it was “hibernated”.
I know hibernation works, from my use with LightsOut. Even tho I do not have LightsOut currently installed on my WHS, it is still on my workstation. When I turn my workstation on, the WHS turns on. Or it did until I installed the APC unit. Go figure.
The moral: Suspend and hibernate options work sometimes. Sometimes they do not. It is quite a hit-and-miss thing. If it works, great! If not, you are SOL. In this case, APC has to only make their SW work with their UPS’s. GridJunction has to try to work with all models. For GridJunction, I would have to say that this ability is more important.
The included APC SW does work. Quite well. GridJunction is simply better integrated into the console. But it is still a very good suggestion. If LightsOut can do it, so should GridJunction be able to do so.
26. March 2009 at 8:27 pm
Actually that is partically incorrect. Only the APC Business Edition will work correctly over time on the WHS. The APC Personal PowerChute have KNOWN Issues acknowleded by APC and the built-in Windows UPS driver originally developed by APC and Microsoft have a race-condition.
One could certainly write a custom action script to hibernate or sleep the WHS instead of a graceful shutdown but I would advise against such. I would like to stress that Grid Junction is designed to help protect ones WHS not to run any uncessary risks for the sake of convenince or personal preference. GJ is designed to run 24/7 and to engage and do what is necessary at a moments notice.
In terms of auto restart, this is something we would love and have prototype code in the works, are engaged in dialogs with certain manufacturers but there are a number of challenges (hardware depended and propriatory); I am happy to read that Jim Clark kept in mind that there are many non APC models in the field, to be more specific there are some really crappy UPS’s out there and a lack of standards is making this very difficult…furthermore one does not want any premature re-starts either.
Thank you
4. April 2009 at 6:37 pm
I’m sure you mean well Jim,
But I personally feel that GridJunction is by far one of the only add-in’s that gives you as you have stated “give one some peace of mind”. I have been using it ever since WGS named it the ADD-IN of the year and I love how flawless it works with the whole WHS package. Keep up the good work.
Thanks,