Not recognizing that [reliable performance requires fault free power] can lead to a great deal of time and money lost searching for the cause of random system crashes and other mysterious occurrences in all the wrong places. Here is an example that happened to a major national IS consultancy firm.
A well known insurance company hired the firm to help develop a risk management system that would automate their underwriting approval process for new policy applications. This Automated Risk Management System project called for implementation on a Windows-based client running on a NetWare server platform. Choices that were a radical departure for a company who, until then, had been completely "Big Blue."
In this case the system was being implemented on NetWare 3.11 running on IBM's model 8595 server. The prototype system was scheduled to rollout over the next six months. But before further development could occur, it was necessary to verify the systems' stability. The problem was the system simply wouldn't work. A series of seemingly random hardware interrupt errors kept bringing the network down.
The frustrated systems development team spent countless hours going over their work and could find nothing wrong. Of course. There wasn't anything wrong with their work. The development team was simply looking in the wrong place! They never dreamed the problem was power related because they believed they had taken every precaution against power problems. After all, the electrical supply in the developmental lab came from dedicated isolated ground circuits with surge suppressed outlets. The server was powered by a 900va SmartUPS from American Power Conversion. What else could they have done?
With the amount of money already spent and, it was felt, jobs on the line, failure was something nobody in the loop wanted to even think about. The client's MIS manager had a sinking feeling she had stuck her neck out too far departing from company tradition.
With a big stake in the project's success, Novell had by this time become involved and assigned a team of engineers to attack the problem. "Could it be possible," they asked, "for these `spurious hardware interrupts' to be power related?" A simple question that provided the key to the ultimate solution.
Having consulted with ONEAC in the past on issues of power impacting network reliability, they called them in again. When ONEAC saw that the client was using an APC SmartUPS to protect their server, they knew that contaminated power could very likely be the culprit. Because the filters APC and most other popular UPS's employ to condition power, are incapable of preventing all harmful power line contaminants from passing on through to the system.
The first step was to place an ONEGraph power monitor on the line to make a historical recording of what was passing through the UPS to the server. The tape readout allowed a comparison between the incidence of each high energy spike with the time recorded for every system crash. What was discovered was that every time the server experienced a spurious hardware interrupt, its power supply was being jolted by a 70 to 80 volt common mode (N-G) impulse! That the two coincided almost perfectly, confirmed bad power as the culprit.
It was precisely this type of problem ONEAC's full output isolation transformer-based power conditioning was designed to solve. So their UPS protection was upgraded from APC UPSs to ONEAC ON Series UPS's and ONEAC power conditioners installed on the peripherals on the server room. And the problem was never heard from again.
© 1995 ONEAC Corp.
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The story begins with a tape backup system that had managers at Helene Curtis totally perplexed. Because right in the middle of backups, it would inexplicably shut down. Other peripherals plugged into their UPS's also were doing strange things, including starting and stopping for no apparent reason. And with absolutely no indication of any problem from their UPS's. They called in EM of the network consulting firm Littva-Mitchell, Inc. to solve the mystery.
EM had seen similar problems before. Actually almost from his very first assignment. Then, he had been hired by a neighborhood pizza parlor to install a Point-of-Sale system. "Perhaps, the most unfriendly computer environment you can have," relates EM. "With ovens and refrigerators and every other electric appliance going on and off, power problems in a pizza restaurant can be horrendous."
After a losing struggle to get the system to work properly, EM remembered someone telling him that ONEAC power conditioners were designed to remedy situations like these. Feeling he had nothing to lose, he plugged the POS system into an ONEAC power conditioner and was pleased to see every problem disappear.
Very aware of power problems by this time, EM recommend that Helene Curtis, rather than continuing to purchase APC SmartUPS, switch to ONEAC UPS. They installed one almost immediately. At the same time, EM began testing their line power with ONEGraph.
In a remarkable coincidence shortly after the monitoring began, the ONEGraph registered a spike that went off the chart. A 1,000 volt spike hit the two file servers running on the APC UPS with full force. Both servers registered a non-maskable interrupt message and went down significantly damaged. File servers hooked into their new ONEAC UPS, on the other hand, remained completely unaffected and continued to operate.
EM admits he doesn't know what caused a spike of that magnitude. He says it could be the elevators or power company switching. He did discover that a power distribution panel was improperly grounded. And he had that remedied immediately.
"Contaminated power can cause serious problems that ONEAC power conditioners and UPS's can easily prevent. Look at company Helen Curtis. Their network has been running on all ONEAC products for the last two years, problem-fee. No more funny business with their tape backup -- or, for that matter, with anything else that's power related. I don't care what other manufacturers claim about their UPS's. I just know that my customers have eliminated a lot of expensive problems simply by using ONEAC."
© 1995 ONEAC Corp.
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At a loss to uncover the source of the problem, the panic stricken company turned to its Sterling, VA-based integrator, STMS (Service Technology Micro Systems) for emergency help.
According to STMS's Senior System Engineer MH, his group arrived on site at the same time as the phone company. "Luckily, as it turned out," says MH. "Because power problems are sporadic and often difficult to diagnose. But with both computers and phones going bad at the same time, we knew the problem had to be power related."
Putting an ONEAC lineviewer and oscilloscope on the circuit, MH saw that the power "went nuts" every time the elevator went up or down. MH had seen it before. And had a ready-made solution -- installing ONEAC UPS's. With ONEAC UPS's now conditioning the power into the server, power line disturbances created by the elevator no longer had any impact.
The case was not yet closed. Why were the phones failing? The problem had to be more than elevators. MH again used the ONEAC lineviewer and oscilloscope, this time to examine the power supply to the accounting firm's phone system. "We were able to quickly identify serious power problems due to a faulty step transformer into the building," MH went on to say. "We asked the power company to change out their step transformer. They did and total system reliability was improved even further."
"When most people think of power problems," says MH, "they consider blackouts and lightning and that's it. But power line interference can be just as damaging to business systems." The CPA firm we've been talking about is a case in point. And it points out another truth: just because the network operates properly at installation doesn't mean power is not something you have to worry about. Affected by utility power switching and every piece of electronic equipment placed on the line, the quality of incoming power can change. Unfortunately, there's no way of predicting when that will be, until it's too late.
STMS's MH proves that with another example. He relates how a national trade association based in Reston, VA thought they had their computers protected from power related incidents when they installed APC UPS's. And then discovered they were mistaken. The hard way. After a jolt fried their disk drive motors!
"We pointed out to them," MH continues, "that the surge suppressor/RF filter technology used by APC and others can relieve some power problems. But you need true power conditioning such as ONEAC's to be really safe. A lot of systems managers we come in contact with don't know that."
© 1995 ONEAC Corp.
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"The Winfield School District met an ambitious schedule, implementing a file server and extensive computer system in less than two months, just in time for the start of the school year. "From the time we installed the system we were having frequent downtime on our file server. It would freeze up or go down for no apparent reason," said JB, Superintendent of Schools for the Winfield School District. The school district's computers were experience error messages, lock-ups and reboots daily.
The file server connected the schools with a network of 75 PCS, allowing for computers on every teacher's desk and in the classrooms. "Our students have a technology period in their schedules," JB explained. "When the network went down, it not only took teachers off line; it also brought our technology classes to a screeching halt. That's learning time that you cannot make up. The problems made us scramble all the time, constantly trying to get the system back up as quickly as possible."
Like many organizations that experience power problems, Winfield' s personnel thought is was the equipment. "First, we rebuilt our file servers piece by piece," JB said. "Although those efforts helped, they never completely solved all the problems. Then, we testing the lines and discovered that we had some high spikes from a dirty power source."
Winfield brought in Commonwealth Edison, the school district's local electricity supplier. ComEd provided a technician who performed a complete check of the power source and offered a solution, which involved taking transformers apart and cleaning off years of corrosion. ComEd also suggested dedicated grounds for some of the lines with heavier computer usage. Winfield followed ComEd's advice, and again, although the efforts helped, Winfield was still encountering dirty power and the related computer problems. "There was still some fluctuation in power," JB noted. "We were still having system lock-ups - not daily but on a regular basis, enough to keep everyone working on solving the problems, instead of moving our entire system forward. Everything was on hold. You don't more forward and add to your system when you can't get what you have working. We know there must to something we were overlooking, and we kept searching for solutions."
Winfield's lack of power education caused the school district to use a UPS manufactured by a leading competitor [APC] of ONEAC. Unlike ONEAC equipment, the competitor's unit did not include a power condition with an isolation transformer, thus exposing Winfield's computer system to damaging noise on the line. The competitor's UPS was not able to prevent Winfield's computer system from experiencing the continuing problems.
"Our computer consultant suggested ONEAC power conditioning," said JB. "We installed the ONEAC equipment and it straightened up almost all the remaining problems. ONEAC really cleaned things up quickly."
"In the beginning when we started having problems," he continued, "we had not looked at power as being one of the major issues. You make the assumption that the power source is good. I was surprised that it was the power and that it was fixed so well by the power conditioners."
One of the options recommended to Winfield was to spend thousands of dollars on rewiring the building to obtain clean grounding. Instead, Winfield chose ONEAC and ended up paying a fraction of the proposed rewiring cost in addition to solving the problems immediately. Even if the school district had opted to have the expensive, inconvenient and time comsumming rewiring done, it wouldn't have offered the same 100% protection furnished by ONEAC.
"We were very pleased with the ONEAC equipment," JB commented. "ONEAC has enabled us to move forward with the rest of the technology plan. We have freed the resources to expand the program instead of spending all of our time just keeping the hardware running."
"At Winfield, we thought having an uninterrupted power supply would be enough," he concluded, "but we learned our lesson and it became very clear to us that going the extra step and adding power conditioners was essential to the success of our implementation program."
© 1997 ONEAC Corp.
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