Eaton Intelligent Power Manager (IPM), an easyto-use platform with sophisticated capabilities to keep critical applications running, now features more automation, an improved user interface, and enhanced visualization options to understand and manage IT equipment from anywhere, any time. If you’re not already talking with your SMB customers about the crucial role power management plays in business continuity and reduced downtime, the latest version of IPM offers an opportunity to start the conversation. If you’ve already implemented IPM, there’s now even more to like with the 2.0 version.
The IPM software, the disaster avoidance module of Eaton’s Brightlayer Data Centers suite, ensures system uptime and data integrity by allowing managed IT service providers (MSPs) to remotely monitor, manage, and control UPSs and other equipment in physical or virtual environments to keep SMB customers’ IT devices running during a power or environmental event.
Launched in June, IPM 2.0 is even easier to use than earlier versions. For instance, with new visual and contextual features in the user interface “you could actually build a rack and see where the IT devices are in the U spaces of the rack. You can see how much power they’re using at a glance, what plugs are plugged into and how much power is consumed at each outlet,” says Jim Tessier, Eaton product manager.
Another enhancement is the ability to leverage the power of automation more easily for graceful shutdown. The new wizard-driven menu prompts you through a series of choices to select devices, times, actions, and conditions for shutting down in the event of a power incident. In earlier versions, Tessier explains, you had to make those selections manually. “The wizard just prompts you. What’s the next thing you want to do? Turn some virtual machines off? Turn off a host? and so on. Automation through the wizard is a huge timer-saver for MSPs.”
Value-Add for Your SMB Customers
With IPM, SMBs can achieve more with less by reducing capital expenses:
- Fewer initial upfront batteries: Increase runtime via software, which reduces hardware requirements.
- Reduced battery replacement: Use fewer batteries, which minimizes maintenance and replacement.
- Promote a greener environment: Consume less energy and recycle fewer batteries.
IPM also reduces the risk of downtime through:
- Intelligent load shedding: Increase system uptime while extending battery runtime and minimizing generator load by suspending noncritical virtual machines and associated hosts.
- Site Recovery Manager failover: Reduce data recovery expenses by synching primary and disaster recovery sites prior to power failures.
- Power capping on demand: Keep critical workloads running longer during a power outage by limiting server power consumption.
Finally, with IPM, SMBs can protect remote sites by automating business continuity at the edge:
- Within cluster: Host IPM within the cluster to avoid needing additional IT equipment for power management software.
- Complex system protection: Configure IPM to gracefully shutdown IT equipment in the order required to assure safe and quick recovery (and restart) from power or environmental outages.
- Automated protection: MSPs can set up and manage remote sites from a central location, saving a truck roll.
IPM also integrates with industry-leading management systems, enabling intelligent remediation of disruptive issues. Three levels of licenses are available: Monitor, Manage, and Optimize. Eaton will continue to support IPM version 1 until December 31, 2023.
Particularly with the new features in IPM 2.0, MSPs have even more reasons to add power management to their portfolio of services, Tessier says, because organizations of all sizes benefit from increased business continuity and reduced risk of downtime. “Downtime is not just when the power is out. Downtime is when the power goes out until your customer’s equipment is back up running again. I’d recommend that MSPs deploy IPM for all their clients to automate graceful shutdowns to avoid disaster.”
For more information on becoming an Eaton PowerAdvantage partner, visit PowerAdvantage.eaton.com.
