Correcting False Power Values Reported by Data Center Expert

Some rack-mount PDUs reporting power bank information to Data Center Expert report wrong power data to EcoStruxure IT Advisor.

Known affected devices: AP8970, AP8888, AP8886, AP8881, AP8870, AP8862, AP8860, AP8853, AP8841, AP8832J, AP8831, AP8653, AP8632, AP8481, AP8441, AP7960, AP7853 ...

You will be able to see if your rack-mount PDUs are reporting incorrectly to ITA if you see a significant difference in a rack-mount PDU's total peak and average values per phase in ITA compared with DCE. This can be done by running a power sensor report of the device(s) in DCE for a time period of 30 days. This report will also show the average and peak values in the bottom table. These numbers can then be compared with the power data seen in the device properties in ITA.

This patch fixing the issue applies to DCE 7.2.6+.

How do I know if my rack-mount PDUs might be reporting wrong power data to ITA?

1. Click View Device Sensors on your device (rack-mount PDU) in DCE (e.g. AP8841).
2. Look for Power - Bank 1 and Power - Bank 2.
3. If the device has more than one power bank, it could be reporting wrong power data to ITA.

How do I apply the patch in DCE?   

1. Make sure to have a recent backup in place of your running systems before applying the patch. 
2. On the DCE server, open this URL: http://<DCE server ip>/nbc/status/SensorContexts.
   You must be logged in as an admin user.
   1. If you already have a previous version of this patch installed (prior to March 2016), remove the existing file: pduSensorUpdates.xml before proceeding.

3. Download this file "pduSensorUpdatesV2.xml" (attachment at the end of this article) and upload it to the DCE server.
   The file has now been uploaded to the server and the patch is in place.

The power values are now correctly transferred.

You can erase the false power data history and see the corrected values immediately* by deleting the external system (DCE) in ITA and adding it again. You will need to associate devices again in ITA. 

*Once the data has been gathered from DCE. It might take up to 1 day depending of number of devices.  

An alternative is waiting. Depending on the configuration in EcoStruxure IT Advisor (30 days by default), all the values will be corrected after the configured time period (30 days by default). In general, power data is stored for a year for report purposes so for reports, the data will take longer for the data to be fully corrected.