If you can keep everything at 48v PoE or 12v barrel plugs, the el-cheapo Amazon / eBay vendors have some mini UPS options that are in the 10-20whr range. Ubiquiti has also made some smaller UPS options for direct DC output. You also might be able to utilize the ont's integrated battery and run a parasitic load off of the battery directly. A benefit there could be dying gasp support. Eric Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G, an AT&T 5G smartphone Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg> ________________________________ From: Mike Hammett via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Sent: Sunday, April 6, 2025 3:29:03 PM To: North American Network Operators Group <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: Mike Hammett <nanog@ics-il.net> Subject: [NANOG] Re: Small Capacity UPS Sure, but I can't just drop that into a car wash, a pizza joint, a used car lot, etc. These aren't places that have battery rooms or even equipment racks. We may look at it and think it's cool and geek out on how the different (still COTS) components were assembled, wired, etc. A layperson will just call that a mess and question if I know what I'm doing. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brandon Svec via NANOG" <nanog@lists.nanog.org> To: "North American Network Operators Group" <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: "Brandon Svec" <bsvec@teamonesolutions.com> Sent: Sunday, April 6, 2025 2:18:54 PM Subject: [NANOG] Re: Small Capacity UPS You can buy a rectifier and batteries so it doesn't have to be a science project. Back in the day, all our large PBX installations had batteries and a rectifier. Sometimes isolated battery rooms adjacent to the switch room. There must be smaller, less expensive rectifiers. The catch is all the gear needs to support the DC power source. LaMarche has been around and was a common brand. I guess those portable, solar power banks are basically rectifiers too as long as they have some DC outputs to use. *Brandon Svec* On Sun, Apr 6, 2025 at 11:55 AM Mike Hammett via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I'm trying to find something that keeps my customer's network gear online for a meaningful amount of time. The challenge is that an ONT, firewall, switch, AP, and some IP phones doesn't add up to be very much load. Most normal UPSes get terribly inefficient at lower load ratings. Add up all of the network devices a customer may have and we rarely break 50 watts of load. Normal, small UPSes are lucky to break 50% efficiency at those loads whereas they may be 95% efficient at say 100 or 200 watts. Get a bigger unit with a bigger battery and now you're even less efficient. Get a big enough unit to have extendable batteries and now you're spending thousands of dollars for such a small request.
I've gone asking, but haven't really gotten anywhere. The best technical solution was from some electronics parts nerds that was basically to build my own small rectifier and battery system. Great. I can achieve high efficiencies with small loads, letting me have say 4 or 8 hours of battery. However, I've got a science project, not something I can deploy at a customer.
I'm hoping one of you has the magic bullet in what product a service provider should use in this scenario.
Oh, and of course, being able to centrally manage them from my own iron would be great too. :-)
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com
Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com
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