question about vCenter server and PCNS appliance - communications and alerts

[jtantalo_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 2/1/2017

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So, the other day I conducted a planned power shutdown in my data center. PCNS on physical servers worked perfectly to shut down their hosts and associated UPS. However, my virtual servers and hosts went through a hard shutdown when the UPS shut down. I found out later that this was due to a communication failure between the PCNS appliance and the vCenter server that had occurred several hours beforehand.

My question is, how can I be alerted when the PCNS appliance can't communicate with the vCenter server? I don't see anything related to that in the event configuration page.

Thanks!

[BillP]

This reply was originally posted by Bill on APC forums on 2/1/2017

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Hi,

What version of PCNS are you running. If you are running PCNS 4.2 you can utilize SNMP to received notifications. If not you can script PCNS to send an e-mail alert. I know one of the other forum members Norman is scripting PCNS on Windows and Linux to e-mail alerts. 

[jtantalo_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 2/1/2017

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Thanks for the response, it is version 4.2. I could utilize SNMP, will it alert if PCNS loses connection to the vCenter server?

Since maintaining communication between vCenter and PCNS is critical (for the shutdown of VMs), is there any chance that APC will include this kind of alert in the next release?

Thanks,

Joe

[BillP · Accepted solution]

This reply was originally posted by Bill on APC forums on 2/2/2017

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Hi,

I have entered an enhancement request to add lost communications with vCenter to be a configurable event. I do not have a date for the next release but the enhancement is on the list.