It is possible to visualize the load of an APC switched PDU for a specified period of time?

Question

There are some APC PDUs AP7953 and now we think about a solution for check the load over a period. We don't need a 100% correct Value only a trend on which hours we have more load to localize peeks in the Powernetwork.

If I log into the PDU I can see the current load, can I set a option to log every change of the current load, so I can write a script that make a Graph for it, but I can't find such a Option. Should I use SNMP for it or is there any other possibility?

I take a look to Gude Expert PDU Energy 8185 but this is very expensive and we don't need 100% correct values. Any tips for this scenario?

Answer 1

You should take a look at Munin. It's a simple RRDtool-based Graphing system. I wrote a quick-start guide to Munin back in 2011

You could similarly use StatsD/Graphite, but Munin probably has the simplest learning curve, and fastest ROI.

Then you'll need to have a look at the SNMP output of the device, probably snmpwalk is the easiest way to do this.

You can download the MIB (Management Information Base) for the APC PDUs from here, that'll help you get some intelligent output from the SNMP data.

APC publish a document that might aid you in figuring out how to interpret the SNMP+MIB output.

Once you know the OID of the data you wish to retrieve, have a read of the Munin SNMP guide to figure out how to use SNMP data in munin graphs.

I wouldn't bother scraping the output of a logfile, as SNMP is a far lower overhead method.

Answer 2

Yes, it's possible to visualize the load of an APC switched PDU for a specified period of time.

You can easily graph it via SNMP using any number of network monitoring tools. APC equipment is ubiquitous, so support for the device is rarely a problem.

You can view the tabular data directly through the unit's web interface and even graph it in Microsoft Excel if you don't wish to set up a monitoring solution and need to review performance on an as-needed basis.