(tsarna) wrote:
> I like the APC UPSes. They don't give the protocol out except under NDA,
> but some of it has been reverse engineered (and either BEST isn't giving
> out everything either, or the non-publicsly-availible parts of the APC
> protocol are things that the BEST can't do anyway). So, for practical
> purposes, they're documented about the same.

No, they're not: Best gives away their specs for the asking.  Just call up 
Best and say "send me the technical specs on serial communication for
your UPSes."  I did this about a year ago; the first phone-answerer
knew exactly what I was talking about, and I received about 50 pages of
concise, detailed specs in 3 days (pretty quick for snail mail, eh?).

I don't have much experience with APC, but the fact that they are sold
in every discount PC computer shop from Seattle to -- well, all the way
around the world back to Seattle -- makes me leery of them.  Plus, we've
got ~100 Fortresses at the university here, none of which has ever failed
(over about a 5-year span, so far) under a variety of bad-Colorado-thunderstorm
power conditions.  They're just plain solid.

I'd be surprised as well if there is anything the APC boxes can do
that the Best boxes cannot do, given the complexity of the things.  The 
pamphlets that come with the Fortresses don't even scratch the surface.
I seem to recall that there might be APC boxes that speak SNMP (which Best
UPSes cannot handle), but that's a whole different kettle of beans.

~james