A few months ago we announced that our Windows Home Server add-in, Grid Junction, designed to manage an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) via the Windows Home Server Dashboard, was being revamped for WHS 2011 and SBS Essentials 2011. After months of private beta testing Grid Junction v2 is now released for public testing.
In case you are not familiar with Grid Junction, which means you’re not jumping for joy just yet, the original add-in was designed for Windows Home Server to manage an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) via the Windows Home Server Dashboard. Grid Junction integrates seamlessly to issue power alerts and help protect Windows Home Server from power problems such as brownouts, or blackouts by safely powering down the Windows Home Server when battery levels reach a set threshold.
Protect your Server!
Whenever your Windows Home Server 2011 or Windows Small Business Server Essentials 2011 suddenly looses power or otherwise halts or restarts without warning there’s a possibility that the file system may have been in an inconsistent state at that time due to data writing or disk balancing activities. If you are unlucky, this can not only corrupt your file system requiring a reinstallation of the Operating System but possibly destroy important data.
Which Battery Backup (UPS) Devices are Supported?
Generally speaking, the most commonly used industry leading uninterruptable power supply manufacturers such as APC, Belkin and Tripp Lite (among others) are known to be supported. But given the vast number of models and variations please check the supported UPS devices list.
Do I need Special Drivers or Software?
In most cases the vendor supplied battery driver or the generic windows battery driver should be sufficient. Unless the manufacturer included specialized software for explicit use on Windows Home Server(s) we do NOT recommend any manufacturer supplied software to be installed besides the driver (if required). In addition we recommend that any users who already installed any of such software to uninstall it before installing the GridJunction Windows Home Server Add-in.
Beta Version
We welcome everyone to make full use of it but do issue a warning of caution as how it is still NOT the final version please try not to use it on your production/live servers.
Please visit the following link: Grid Junction v2.0 BETA to download your free trial version, put it to through the ringer and let us know what you find. This beta trial will run until January 31, 2012.
More: kentdome.com | home-server-addins.com
i downloaded it,
i feal dumb, my WHS 2011 is a VM and cant get to the usb to use it.
I need to put in a request to Alexander to make a client part so that i can monitor a UPS on 2008R2 from the WHS 2011 VM
alot like MM3.
need to make a pole for a feature like this so he would know im not the only one lol
I know what you mean. In the past I’ve setup a development VM only to find out that USB wasn’t supported in my Virtual Machine (hyper-v). VMWare provides USB passthrough which works with some models.
When I pickup a ip/network USB and pass it through to whs 2011 vm I’ll post it.
Darn hyper v
P.s. App looks great
I installed Grid Junction Beta 2.0 2 and almost every morning (sometimes during the day, I think) I get an alert from the server that says that Grid Junction is not running. I can easily restart the service but it stops the next day. Also, it reports that there is a newer version but I don’t seem to find a newer version. WHS 2011 reports it as version 2.0.0.
Other than that, it looks good. I haven’t tried doing a power-off UPS yet.
Ken, you should not be getting the “update available” message anymore. This was generated by our testing of the update discovery mechanism in Grid Junction 2011.
It looks like the Grid Junction service is crashing on your machine. If that is the case, there should be crash messages in your server’s application event log. Could you please export your server’s application event log and upload it to the forums (http://www.homeserverland.com/forum/index.php?/forum/75-grid-junction-v2/)? You can use the Advanced Admin Console 2011 AddIn (available from my website) to access your server’s event log.
What is happening is that the Grid Junction Service isn’t being restarted after the server goes into sleep mode and wakes back up. The event log reports that the service is stopped when sleep mode is invoked but there is no attempt to wake it up when the server rewakes.
Also, on the add-in tab it is still reporting that an update is available for Grid Junction.
Hi Ken,
Thanks for digging further into this issue. I remember only briefly testing the standard Windows hibernation feature (typically I do not sleep/hibernate my WHS) so this is likely to be the culprit. However please note that if one sleeps the server by default this would mean that all USB communications would cease and thus GJ would no longer be able to communicate with the UPS during a sleep cycle, furthermore any lengthy power failure could result in a drained battery and interrupted sleep cycle – the good news would be that there’s little to no disk IO whilst sleeping and thus the risk would be lower (arguably). Given such scenario I generally prefer hibernation instead of sleep.
Are you using any 3rd party add-ins and please clarify do you sleep or hibernate your WHS?
I use Lights Out, therefore the system goes to sleep 10 minutes after all clients are in sleep mode. I do not use hibernate. I also have MyMovies as well as Grid Junction and Lights Out for my add ins.
I prefer to have the server sleep as it draws little power. In cases where I loose power when it is sleeping, no big deal for me.
USB ports work during sleep mode because USB mouse wakes up the computer when it is in sleep mode. Otherwise, you would never be able to bring back your computer from sleep. I know this is the case with my Dell client computer and I would think it would be the case with my WHS server.
The resolution would seem to be to have grid junction run all the time and not have the service stop when the computer sleeps. Or have it restart when the computer resumes from the sleep state.
Is there anyway I can prevent the service from stopping when the computer sleeps?
Andreas, Alexander, Ken,
I have a scaleo home server that can only go to hibernate (I use Lights out too), and I too see the grid junction service being stopped before going to hibernate/sleep, but not being started after wakeup. I have just created a scheduled task to start the service again and I attached it to the Power-Troubleshooter event. I’ll see later if that solves my problem, but it should be handled by Gridjunction self. Hope you can fix it in the final version.
Bart,
Martin Rothschink, the author of LightsOut, has confirmed that the issue (GJ service stopped before hibernate, not started after wakeup) is caused by a bug in LightsOut prior to SP2 Beta (Build 1619). You can get the latest (beta) version of LightsOut here http://forum.home-server-blog.de/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=15032.
We are currently working on a beta refresh (version 2.0.1) of Grid Junction which will circumvent the issue entirely and thus will also work with the latest stable release of LightsOut (build 1555).
Thank you for your detailed report of your experience with Grid Junction. It was very helpful and valuable for us and helped us to find the root cause of the problem.
Installation of Grid Junction V2 on Windows storage Server 2008 R2 essentials VM thru a network usb went perfect. see forum for future updates of testing
http://www.homeserverland.com/forum/index.php?/topic/2109-grid-junction-v2-on-a-hyper-vm/page__p__10190__hl__%2Bgrid+%2Bjunction__fromsearch__1#entry10190
network usb was starteck 4 port
Hi there! I just purchased a APC back-ups, model Bz1200 and when looking for an alternative for it’s native software I found this topic about Grid Junction 2.0 and it seems to be what I need.
I bought this no-break to support two computers (for now..). One of them is a WHS 2011 machine (to store movies and music) and the other runs windows 7, this one used as HTPC and for gaming. Most of the time both are in sleep mode (to save energy) and I just awaken the server (via the lights-out addin client installed on htpc) when necessary. When I’m playing, the server usually is sleeping.
Consider the following scenario: With both computers sleeping, it would be possible for Grid Junction wake the server (when electric power is down, of course), check if the other computer is awake and put it into hibernation after a pre determined period of time? Or even check if the other computer is in sleep mode, wakes it and puts it in hibernation? I prefer to use sleep mode rather hibernation mode because the latter is too slow to wake up.
Another possibility: Grid Junction could command all computers connected to the WHS 2011 machine go to hibernation mode even if these are not connected to the same no-brek. Could be a nice feature, couldn’t?
So, I know that a server that most of it’s time is in sleep mode isn’t the most common situation. But save money is priority for me. Please, take a few minutes to think about that.
By the way, I apologize if anything I said sound strange. My English is not my strong point and needed help from an online translator, the tradukka.com.
Thanks
Mauricio
>> Martin Rothschink, the author of LightsOut, has confirmed that the issue (GJ service stopped before hibernate, not started after wakeup) is caused by a bug in LightsOut prior to SP2 Beta (Build 1619). You can get the latest (beta) version of LightsOut here http://forum.home-server-blog.de/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=15032.
Installed the Lights Out update yesterday and just in time. I had 5 power outages last night. Grid Junction captured them and I think is doing OK. Will monitor the situation and let you know what I find.
It appears that the Grid Junction service is starting up after the server resumes from sleep. However, I am getting an alert from the server stating that the service isn’t running. I think the problem is that Grid Junction is reporting the error before the service has been started. I would think you need to implement a delay before reporting that the service isn’t running. Other than that, it appears to be working.
The server was in standby today when I had a power outage. The WHS 2011 box did wake up (I think the battery backup sent a signal to the USB port and is why it woke up) and reported that the it was running on battery backup power.
So, it appears there is no problem even if the server is in standby mode (at least with my system)!
Hi Alexandra,
I installed Grid Junction Beta version 2.0.0.0 on my semi-production WHS 2011 box (Tranquil SQA-5H series 1) a couple of weeks ago and very happy to report the install was smooth with no problems whatsoever. Connected the USB lead and My UPS was correctly identified as an APC Back-UPS E5 550 FW:828.D3 .IUSB FW:D3 and displays perfectly in the dashboard. I have simulated a number of power failures and Grid Junction functions as expected. For your information, the only other add-in I have installed at this time is Remote Launcher 1.0.0.0.
Question, will remote notification and the ability to shut-down a client PC(s) using a script (similar to Grid Junction 1.X) be reintroduced in to Grid Junction 2.x?
Fantastic add-in.