Reporting APC PDU power usage

You'd need to know the RMS Voltage along with the Amps as well as the power factor (assuming AC). If those metrics are available via SNMP from the PDU, this should be doable.

On 8/26/2020 at 8:53 AM, Stuart Weenig said:

You'd need to know the RMS Voltage along with the Amps as well as the power factor (assuming AC). If those metrics are available via SNMP from the PDU, this should be doable.

i've found that newer APC PDUs have a datasource for live power usage 
I am able to report on that with live data and see the graph for past usage

the next hurdle is to find a way to sum the usage for a given time period
I dont see a clear way to do that using any of the available dashboard widgets. 
Is this even possible?

the only possible solution Ive come up with is to assume power consumption will remain close to the same, then multiply the KW usage by a set integer representing hours of  month to estimate monthly KW hours consumed.
But this is a horrendously inaccurate representation for power usage over time. 

Any suggestions?

Yeah, you'll need to create a "Resource Metric Trend". Setup the filter so that it includes the instances you're interested in and the new live power usage datapoint. Then make sure the sum column is checked/included. It will sum the datapoint over the timeframe for each instance (row) in the report.

On 8/28/2020 at 7:16 AM, Stuart Weenig said:

Yeah, you'll need to create a "Resource Metric Trend". Setup the filter so that it includes the instances you're interested in and the new live power usage datapoint. Then make sure the sum column is checked/included. It will sum the datapoint over the timeframe for each instance (row) in the report.

Thanks for all the assistance on this!

I was able to make the report and I can output the datapoint delta for the given time

my trouble now is that the report wants to automatically adjust the value for the large number. I dont seem to have anyway to adjust the output.

Device interface:45,154.2 kWh
SNMP Energy: 45154.2 (kWh)
SNMP EnergyRaw: 451542 (kWh tenths)

Report output
Energy: 45.15k
EnergyRaw: 451.54k

While these numbers are technically correct summaries for the input data, it is inaccurate representation of the actual units being tallied
You would not display the output of 45.15k kWh… it just doesn’t look right. And I cant add a unit reference or description to the report output. 

Secondarily, the Change(Delta) column doesn’t really explain what we are looking at if I give this report to a client. 

Is there any way to edit this type of report to make it more presentable?

Thanks again,
Mac

1 hour ago, Stuart Weenig said:

You'd need to know the RMS Voltage along with the Amps as well as the power factor (assuming AC). If those metrics are available via SNMP from the PDU, this should be doable.

Thanks Stuart.
the PDU I am testing with does not include the SNMP info for voltage and power factor with the default data source.
I will need to do an SNMP walk to see if i can pull that data manually 

i may need to test with a newer PDU as well. 

hehe, so it's saying 45.15 k kWh (thousand kiloWatt hours). 45 MWhours? Great Scot!

Yes, you can fix this and you probably should think about the graphs as you do this as well. Since the raw value is in 10ths, you should consider either modifying the existing datapoint or creating a new complex datapoint that converts from tenths of a kWh to Wh. That way the actual number is stored and both the graph and report will automatically scale (along SI units). So the actual value that gets stored would be 45154200, which is in Watt-hours. When the reporting system and the graphing system go to display them, they will automatically scale up to MWh.

On 8/31/2020 at 11:26 AM, Stuart Weenig said:

hehe, so it's saying 45.15 k kWh (thousand kiloWatt hours). 45 MWhours? Great Scot!

Yes, you can fix this and you probably should think about the graphs as you do this as well. Since the raw value is in 10ths, you should consider either modifying the existing datapoint or creating a new complex datapoint that converts from tenths of a kWh to Wh. That way the actual number is stored and both the graph and report will automatically scale (along SI units). So the actual value that gets stored would be 45154200, which is in Watt-hours. When the reporting system and the graphing system go to display them, they will automatically scale up to MWh.

LOL, Yeah Mega Watt Hours... who knew we'd worry about that at a PDU level. 
This field is a "user resetable" number that id be no one ever resets. Mine were last rese years ago, probably the install date :)/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" />

I try not to edit the data sources because that means updating them from the repository will remove my changes. 
So I cloned the data source and added the complex datapoints I needed to track Watt Hours
after a few days i can confirm the report is displaying the data correctly

My next hurdle is that this is a useful repot for internal testing, however it is not at all a clean customer facing report I could schedule and email monthly.
I understand that the data is stored and available to draw on for the metric report, but I cant see a way to build this as a clean dashboard or gauge. 
I guess I am asking if there is a "report designer" or maybe a means of making a gauge from this data now that I have it tracked?

1 minute ago, Mac said:

I try not to edit the data sources because that means updating them from the repository will remove my changes. 

This is no longer the case thanks to the new LM Exchange. When downloading updates to a DataSource, it kicks off Save LogicModule Merge, which identifies the difference between your installed version and the updated version. Then, for each difference, you get to walk through choosing to keep your version of that setting or the exchange version of the setting.

4 minutes ago, Mac said:

I guess I am asking if there is a "report designer" or maybe a means of making a gauge from this data now that I have it tracked?

Help me get a better idea of how you want to present the data. You mention gauge, does that mean you want to try to use a gauge widget?

Thank for the info on the data sources. I didnt know they would keep customizations now, thats awesome!

I am not sure what the best approach is to making the KWH usage into a clean customer facing report would be. Currently the only way to get that number is to use the resource metric trend report.

In an ideal world, id like to be able to refer to the calculated value of Watthours based on the current dashboard view time range
The data point should be simple enough.... (WattHours maximum value) - (WattHours minimum value) = Consumed WattHours for the given time range. 
If that data point could be calculated with the Big Number widget, it would be ideal.
The additional step would be to combine the usage of all of the PDUs into a single Big Number for the given date range (probably a monthly view)

Near as I can tell, there is not a way to look at the first and last value in a data range for a dashboard.. it appears to be designed to look exclusively at the most recent data values.
However, the widgets are able to display a graph showing the historic data. So that makes me thinks there may be a way to reference the previous data values.

The dashboard I put together shows a live view of the data from each PDU. 
The Gauge and Big Number widgets display the current values.
The Graph widget displays historic data - but I dont see a way to refer to the historic values for any other widget.

 

36 minutes ago, Mac said:

In an ideal world, id like to be able to refer to the calculated value of Watthours based on the current dashboard view time range

This is your feature request. I know it's already in the system, but you should throw your weight behind it. Every customer that requests it moves it up in priority for the Product Management team.

37 minutes ago, Mac said:

Near as I can tell, there is not a way to look at the first and last value in a data range for a dashboard.. it appears to be designed to look exclusively at the most recent data values.

That's correct.

37 minutes ago, Mac said:

However, the widgets are able to display a graph showing the historic data. So that makes me thinks there may be a way to reference the previous data values.

They do that because that's how those widgets are hard coded to work.