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We currently have apc PDUs on our racks at the datacenter. Not really happy with the mounting bracket options. Also, I feel that remote management could be a bit better.

Any suggestions on any other PDU vendors?

How is servertech?

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closed as not constructive by Chris S♦, MDMarra, MikeyB, Tom O'Connor, Scott Pack Nov 22 '11 at 17:46

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3 Answers

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You can take a look to Eaton ePDU. I have no other point of comparison so I can't tell if it's better than somethign else but they fit my needs. You can manage them with telnet, snmp, http, ...

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I ended up having to jury rig my APC PDUs to get them mounted so I know your pain. As to management, APC has some nice management tools, that you have to purchase to make the PDU management easier.

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Jury Rig? You mean custom L brackets? Where did you get those? If the mounting was not that big of a problem, the APCs are otherwise very nice to work with. – user49536 Jul 30 '10 at 23:08
Yeah, sort of custom. I think they are from Lowes or home depot. Then I used the rack screw clips to attach the APC PDU to the bracket. Basically I got a large L with a 1/2" short end, and about a 6" long side. The short side goes against the rack, secured with one or two screws depending on what fits. The long side is then screwed to the bracket which comes with the APC strips. Total cost $10 per rack. This pic (mrdenny.com/pics/rack.jpg) is kind of blurry, but you can see the silver bracket at the top and bottom of the PDU on your left. – mrdenny♦ Jul 31 '10 at 4:02
I went to the CoLo today so I was able to get some more pics of the brackets for you if you still needed them. mrdenny.com/pics/bracket1.jpg mrdenny.com/pics/bracket2.jpg mrdenny.com/pics/bracket3.jpg mrdenny.com/pics/bracket4.jpg mrdenny.com/pics/bracket5.jpg – mrdenny♦ Sep 11 '10 at 4:44
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That's a crazy mounting situation. I've never tried to mount an APC PDU in a rack other than an APC rack (which are great.) And Dell tells me that their racks are designed by APC so they have the 'proper' mounting that you'll find in the APC racks. Here is the mounting kit that is used for those PDUs when not installed in an APC rack.

What is your complaint on the management of them? On certain models you can turn on/off each port via SNMP (or ssh/telnet) (look for the 'switched' models, not just the 'metered' ones.) You can also get Amps drawn per phase (on 3 phase units) or per 'bank' (on non-3 phase units) via SNMP. Sure, that doesn't work well until each phase/bank is drawing at least one Amp. They notably don't have per port power monitoring, but that adds quite a bit to the cost on PDUs that do have that feature.

I've used PDUs made by Perle, but that was many years ago. I've heard good things about the Epicenter PDUs (now owned by Chatsworth,) but I haven't personally used them.

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I've mounted apc ups units into ibm racks without issue. Dont know if those are also apc designed. – Sirex Jan 5 '11 at 9:21
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