"Dear Customers, Fuck you. Love from, APC!"
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Posted Apr 19, 2023, 10:38 AM UTC · edited
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Makes zero sense - power goes out, router powered down = no internet...
Wonder if you are running NUT this impacts Serial / USB connections or only network ones???
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Oh in that case you really need to contact APC to discuss a proper solution that won't involve losing the internet access when powers go down. They have solutions from small business to big datacenters and definitely will be able to tailor the solution for your needs!
/S
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I asked NCR for an install CD once. They offered to put together a project team to look into it for £900/day. As an adult, I understand that is corporatespeak for "fuck off, kid". Still sat with me for a while.
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Hmmm… Maybe I‘m wrong but there is a solution for that?🤔 Like PUT YOUR FUCKING NETWORK GEAR ON THE UPS UNCLE JACOB! 😆
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I mean, that's valid - but so is being concerned that an upstream outage can negatively impact local monitoring.
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Honestly that's why you configure your equipment to shutdown automatically if you're going to run the UPS out of juice.
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Yup, that equipment will definitely get the message from the unreachable cloud service that the device is on battery and needs to shut down.
…aaannyyy minute now…
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Nope - the core aim of a UPS in a power outage (not brown out or voltage spike) is to provide enough power to shut down systems safely and if you want to run for longer than that then look to use a standby supply / generator to come on to cover all your systems.
I've spent hours going over this commercially with data centres, generator suppliers and direct with the UPS manufactures. Load shed from the UPS as soon as possible.
As others say - it's very rare that you are the only one impacted - up stream often gets hit and as more and more green cabinets in the U.K. go full fibre they have little to no resilience fr home users. Look at OpenReach and the issues they have moving people over to VOIP from copper here. It took them three years to realise that not everyone has a mobile and folk need to be able to make calls when power is out - POTS had a legal requirement that the exchange had power and that does not apply to data services (not even to data driven alarms).
Given the increase in supply chain attacks why risk your whole systems on APCs undocumented and none SLA backed security systems (that may or may not exist)? One hack here could leave my systems vulnerable to an attacker (straight power down = a full DOS attack) from APCs 'cloud' and there is zilch I can do about it.
Give me a dumb UPS any day.
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in the U.K. go full fibre they have little to no resilience fr home users.
I'm curious about this, do you generally have FttN or FttH most commonly? I did experience upstream outages affecting my UPS powered network when I had FttN (apartment building that used old Coax to connect to the units but had a media converter in the building) but now that I have FttH I've not seen that happen. With passive optical fiber networks you theoretically shouldn't lose internet in an outage unless the outage goes all the way to the local/regional exchange
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The government body that oversees internet connection has just put a notice out to aim to clarify companies using the term 'fibre' (Ofcom news here) and TBH it really depends where you live.
OpenReach (main U.K. telecoms wholesaler) where forced to allow companies to use their exchanges under a scheme called local loop unbundling (LLU) but companies cherry picked high population areas and often provided fibre to the exchange and then took OR copper to home. Others provided fibre to the home from LLU exchanges (using OR as the backbone or their own interconnects) or in some areas ran fibre direct to the house from their own premises!
Latest figures are that 50% of homes will get full fibre this year but this is driven by new builds and towns / cities being given priority. I live in a small village and it's only in the last three years that fibre to the cabinet has been available to the majority of the village and I've been fighting with OR to try and get their records correct as the automatic maintenance routines drop the lines here regularly as they think we are between 1.1Km or 400m from the cabinet!
So far new builds have been lucky - the large estates are getting service but often it's only one supplier (B.T.) who refuse to rent out the cabling to other providers. Change of provider can lead to wait times of a year or more as the other providers build up a feeling for extra orders or for the wholesale lines to become available.
In the next year we expect two companies to offer full fibre in the village with VOIP but each will be installing their own cable so houses will still have copper for the next few years and possible two new holes in the wall...
A lot of this mess is historic - we technically only had two companies who provided telecommunications in the country. One government backed (BT) and one who just covered Kingston upon Hull (east coast Yorkshire). This kept the government clean as they did not have a monopoly (yea right) and then they decided to split BT into wholesale (OpenReach) and retail (BT) and by opening the market prices should drop by market forces. All it did was cause confusion and finger pointing with SLAs being a mess and the inability for local folk to get together to get problems solved at a street level as different ISPs are not able to link calls together BY LAW (data protection acts) and we are reliant on the wholesale provider to act area wide and not against calls. I have had an engineer turn up, do a line test and close the call as the fault was in the cabinet and not line and my ISP reported a line not service issue - three houses where down (all different ISPs) due to a faulty card in the cabinet!
Basically it's a b*ggers muddle run by a government quango who are only interested in towns and cities!
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Yeah cause that will keep your uplink going when the power hits a complete block and your pop goes down. /S
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This only affects smartconnect, not the network cards.
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My reading is that this connects your UPS to their systems - something I would firewall off but who knows what could stop working long term if the UPS cannot call home.
This is just an extra risk that I would not want to have to manage and a desperate revenue stream grabbing action.
It's way better to keep your customers happy that try to tie them in...
Think about the poor folk who have spent an arm and a leg replacing their batteries within warranty time to read that this software 'magically' increases the battery life warranty by a year!
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You can set up an alert for when the UPS drops off the network. That does mean it will alert for any network outage, but I've found that to be worth it.
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I use SNMP direct to the router / modem as it lets me monitor line quality, up and down speed and connection status.
Way better than using the UPS surely?
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I have one of each. One is SmartConnect, and the other is apcupsd.
monitor line quality, up and down speed and connection status
Those seem potentially interesting, but I'm not sure what I'd do with the information.
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I saw a talk at a recent conference, apperently most ISPs use SNMP to monitor all of the modems on their networks and the SNMP is often not limited to the ISP side of the modem. You might even be able to sniff the SNMP credentials on the line if you can't get them from the ISP since they'll either be plaintext or badly encrypted with an easily-bruteforced algorithm (but usually plaintext because SNMPv3 and SNMP Privacy can be kinda a pain)
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In my case continue a three year argument with my ISP that the line has issues :-(
For me I can look to stop some web based services running if bandwidth has drastically dropped.
But this is drifting off UPS and web based reporting / control.
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Yeah cloud based network monitoring doesn't work if there's network equipment on the ISP side that also loses power in an outage.
My prediction is they'll backpedal and offer a paid online unlock of standard SNMP monitoring
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If you have an older UPS, yes. Not if you have a SmartConnect model.
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Still works fine via USB or serial on smart connect models. I used a raspberry pi running apcupsd anyway as the cloud service just seems like a gimmick.
If you want the full network functionality you just need to buy one of the models that you can add the network card to.
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Still works fine via USB or serial on smart connect models.
Which defeats the point in buying a connected UPS in the first place of course, but fair shakes.
you just need to buy one of the models that you can add the network card to.
Doesn't make this any less a "Fuck You.", but yes, that's currently an option. However, APC now lists the product name as "Legacy Communications SmartSlot Card" which suggests it's very much on the way out. I'd kind-of be surprised if that wasn't conspicuously absent on the APC Store on August 1st.
Correction - The add-in cards remain unaffected. I mixed up two related but different products, which is on me. Which also doesn't make this less of a "Fuck you.".
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I'm not in front of my laptop at the moment and I guess it depends on the model. But for me I had to enable modbus on the ups in the settings menu to get extended info via USB. It's also the reason I use apcupsd with the modbus module/driver rather than NUT which I don't think fully supports modbus.
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I’ll see if I can post mine tonight. I have a smart LiOn 500 connected via USB and even sends MQTT to my home assistant. It took a bit of fiddling but was perfect for an ancient raspberry pi that was collecting dust. A bit of electrical tape over the blinking red light and it’s better than cloud connect.
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That’s not true.
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Ok. Let's spell this out because people seem to be misunderstanding my intent - It's true for the SmartConnect over a USB/Serial connection or using an add-on card.
It is not true for the network port built into the SmartConnect hardware. So if you have a LIon SmartConnect in storage that you were planning to install in August and use with the cloud services for five years, NUT is not a free replacement for the cloud services, which is why I am pushing back at it as a "fix" for the change.
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Smart connect free was only ever a trial and was already a watered down version for control. It was never featured enough to replace add in cards/usb/serial
Getting mad because a cloud service going paid only is like getting mad when a business stops handing out free samples because of cost.
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At work we just buy the add in comms card instead of buying more cloud based crap. I personally think this just another company figuring out ways to get more money without doing anything.
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That appears to be deprecated, as they list it as "Legacy Communications SmartSlot Card" now.
Correction, that was a mix-up on my part, so far availability of local cards is unaffected.
I personally think this just another company figuring out ways to get more money without doing anything.
That's exactly what this is. (This bit didn't need correction).
Looking forward to this segment in the WAN show on Friday.
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As far as I understand, this is more a value add than anything else. SmartConnect is built-in, but you can still buy the add-in network management card like you've always been able to, and no cloud subscription is required for that.
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Add-in card is now listed as "Legacy".
See rest of this "subthread" for the sordid details of my error - add-in card is not legacy, so while that remains true then there will still be an option to get local connectivity for an extra £450 on top of the price of the UPS which has all the necessary hardware built in but doesn't let you use it locally.
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Not sure where you see that. Their official product page for the NMC3 has no mention of discontinuation or "legacy": https://www.apc.com/us/en/product/AP9640/apc-ups-network-management-card-3/?%3Frange=61936-ups-network-management-cards&selected-node-id=27590324784
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I stand corrected - I mixed it up with a different product called "Legacy communications card".
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They changed the protocol the UPS speaks to Modbus quite a few years ago (I have a an SRT1000 I just replaced that is a Modbus UPS). The "Legacy" they are referring to is the old UPS signalling protocols. Please be more informed before jumping to conclusions.
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We just purchased a few of the new li-ion units, and the APC rep did try to sell the EcoStruxture sub pretty hard, but acknowledged that the NMCs worked just fine for monitoring without a sub. Doesn't mean I like them pushing the cloud stuff, but at least there's still a local option.
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Imagine they block you from NUT as you please... /s
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FUTURE APC PRESS RELEASE- “due to an unforeseen exploit in our API, 200,000 ups’s in production were unexpectedly turned off! We have since patched this vulnerability but since 10k of the UPS were securing vital infrastructure leading to unforeseen control server outages resulting in a downing of the electrical grid for the entire east coast for 3 weeks, we are also offering a free 3 month subscription to Life Lock” Sincerely, Greed!!
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Shame on Schneider Electric!
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Why ?
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Cuz APC is owned by Schneider Electric?
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APC is a brand by Schneider Electric. That is why.
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Ah yes forgot sorry
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The local management is still there, they've just reduced the duration of the included cloud monitoring when you buy a new one. You might want to check your facts and update your post accordingly.
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Yes, if you pay half-the-price-again for an NMC, you can still use SNMP with a SmartConnect UPS.
And yes, they have reduced the duration of the included monitoring from five years (LIon, 3 for Pb) to six months. Which is a spectacular reduction.
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eaton or use a sbc connected via usb and use NUT / apcd as a replacement
oh yeah or use eaton. solid units and super customer service.
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Clarification - the change is that you now need the subscription after 6 months, whereas previously (currently) it's five years. From Aug 1 - if you want to use the product as sold after six months, you need to either pay 50% again for a network card (assuming 750W 2U LIon) or pay a subscription fee, which you didn't have to before.
So that's what I'm calling them out on. Me shitting on the cloud is because if they had added an integrated NMC which allowed local SNMP (the hardware is the same, only the software changes...) then there would be no impact from this. And if you don't pay for the subscription, you're paying for the hardware and aren't allowed to use it. Which sucks.
But thank you for not being a dick about disagreeing with my take on it. :)
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Rent seeking behavior is a sign of a vulnerable manufacturer.
The market is ripe for someone to make a basic LiFEPO4 lineup without subscription/cloud/viruses & isnt priced 10X like all the other lithium UPS shit. The actual raw battery cost doesn't justify anything for sale right now.
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MSRP for the lithium-based Eaton 5P1500R-L is only about twice the MSRP for the lead-acid-based 5P1500R. Still hard to justify, but at least not 10x.
Sadly, for some reason, I can't buy the 5P1500R-L here in Washington State. (Fun fact: among the pile of UPSes I bought from the State of Washington at auction a couple of years ago, there were more than one that aren't legal to sell in Washington State.)
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I would be interested to know why they are not legal 🤔 I actually have to buy some for our site up in spokane.
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I wish I knew. I expect that there's some sort of environmental or mandatory recycling legislation that they run afoul of, but I've never seen any manufacturer provide a justification for why they don't sell certain models in certain states. APC has a few models with the same restrictions.
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MSRP isnt real world though.
I get 1500VA/1kW lead acid "interactive" & PFC compatibles for ~$150 all the time and they work well, pretty much the ideal regular household outlet size.
Basically any gadget I want to outlast short outages or blips is on one. Stuff like my networking and IP cams stay up a good hour or more. Larger loads like TVs, computers, etc plenty of time to stop what I'm doing and turn them off cleanly.
Never seen a LiFePO4 anywhere close to $300, let alone one that uses most of a household socket. I can DIY with the "drop in rated" 12V replacements for a bit less though, which is probably what I'll do in the longer run as the lead acids wear out.
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I was just going for an "all other things being equal" comparison, and I was already on Eaton's website, so I looked at their Li-based (not even LiFePO4, or if it is they're doing themselves a disservice by calling them Li-ion on their website) offerings and comparing to the same model in Pb, because it seemed reasonable to assume that the resulting price difference was only due to battery tech and not due to, say, the standard "enterprise-grade" markup or a difference in features or warranty.
I'll agree that there's clearly a market for lithium-based UPSes. Neither Eaton nor APC seems to offer a "desktop" UPS with any sort of lithium technology.
On the other hand, we all know how skilled APC is at making even lead-acid batteries explode. Imagine the havoc they could wreak with lithium.
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Rent seeking behavior is a sign of a vulnerable manufacturer.
Also a good point. They described this change in the email as being for "sustainability" which is also concerning. Wink app? Starts rent seeking - immediately goes bankrupt. I think APC is some way off from that level, but this is either gross greed, or it's a danger warning. and I don't know which. Neither is good.
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Can you connect through the serial port?
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Not to an ethernet switch, but yes. ;)
For people using Serial/USB connectivity? No change. For people paying the extra 50% to buy an NMC? No change. For everyone else, 85.6% reduction in the length of included cloud monitoring.
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I was just getting ready to pull the trigger on a new APC rackmount. This is off putting for sure. Time to look at others now.
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When I got my most recent APC I didn't even know the web-based thing existed, and it's pretty pointless. The only useful features were already behind another paywall anyway.
The battery warranty paid off though. Mine already threw a battery and had to replace it.
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We've made use of the email notifications. Obviously it's dependent on upstream connectivity being live, but for ancillary switch cabs it was great value - since it lasted the life of the UPS.
Now it doesn't last the life of the UPS, the value proposition is kind of shot, and SmartConnect is basically useless - since we might as well get a NMC instead.
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And in my case I use NUT, so it's mostly a useless proposition now.
Even when I called (well, chatted) my battery replacement it was of no value. They still interrogated me, had me re-run self tests, etc, even though I tried pointing out to them that, in theory, they should see all this in their own online tool showing the failures.
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And in my case I use NUT, so it's mostly a useless proposition now.
Would be on our core network as well, since we use SNMP monitoring. So - I do get it!
even though I tried pointing out to them that, in theory, they should see all this in their own online tool showing the failures.
Well, at least they can't be accused of inconsistency. :D
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APC out, the remaining options are CyberPower, Eaton, or Vertiv.
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+1 for Eaton.
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I have a CyberPower OL1000EXL with the RMCARD205 for SNMP-monitoring and it all works flawlessly out of the box, less than 1 hour to set up everything, including the Synology NAS via USB. Very happy with it.
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As a sysadmin, this pisses me off... I don't want a cloud solution when the on-prem solution works fine and I can lock it down.
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CyberPower has two types of remote management cards - the cloud one and the local one. I’m just sticking with the local one.
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After years with apc ups, I’ve switched to Eaton and no regrets. Much longer battery life
APC and Eaton are typically neck and neck for who the best is. This just pushed Eaton over that edge and makes it the best now.
I hear ya, but Eaton has PredictPulse; I'd imagine it's a matter of time before they do the same.
I'll stick with the older enterprise stuff for now.
My experience with Eaton customer support has been stellar. I bought a used 5P1500RT at government auction, and it had a fan fault. When I contacted them to see whether the fans were available as a spare part, they told me that their policy was that if I owned an Eaton product, even if I wasn't the first owner, they would support it. They no longer had the fans for it, but they did walk me through some other possibilities and troubleshooting steps I wouldn't have thought of.
I did end up replacing the fans, with a comparable high-CFM model AUB0812VH-SP00 from Delta rather than the original Sunon fans, and my experience with Delta sales and support was also stellar.
When the time comes to spend real money on a new UPS or two, and that time will probably be soon, I know I'll be buying Eaton.
I had an Eaton that I bought back in the early 2000s from a business that went under. The thing failed during a lightning storm, called up Eaton, gave them the serial number and two days later had a replacement on my doorstep. As a result, I have been buying Eaton UPSes ever since.
..and that's how you turn a oneoff support ticket into a lifelong customer. way to go, Eaton, keep up the good work!
btw I recently bought an Eaton UPS because of the favorable comments here. it's too soon to have been needing to call support, but so far the unit has served me well.
reading your experience with eaton support, this makes me want to get eaton UPS's now.
Eaton has amazing customer service. My battery crapped out of a Tripplite smart1500rmxl2ua that I picked up from a local seller for $30. I didn't realize that the UPS would just not turn on at all anymore so I contacted Eaton and they guided me on how to fix it (replace the battery, duh) and what battery to buy.
I'm only buying Eaton from now on!
I will keep this in mind for a future homelab build
Never had a good experience with any Eaton product. UPS or otherwise.