APC by Schneider Electric AP9640 UPS Management Adapter

As manufacturers continue to move to force customers to buy subscription licenses, it is always good to have an alternative. I bought this for my rack mount SMT1000, because I found out the "SmartConnect" functionality is crippled unless you pay. Although it is not a cheap option, this vendor is significantly cheaper than APC's list pricing. Installation was a breeze, having prepared the DHCP options in advance on my Unifi environment. I upgraded the firmware, set up SNMP for my QNAP NAS devices, SMTP for alerts, and set up preferences for load-shedding all within a couple of hours. I just need to complete a calibration so that I have an accurate idea of how long the battery will last with my current load. I saw that APC is saying that the firmware I installed is the last "free" update before forcing a support contract for future updates. I'm just a home user, so I'll be fine with what I have. Having battery backup for my NAS devices was the primary reason for this purchase; I now have peace of mind with the UPS, and the ability to control how the battery backup allows my QNAP devices to gracefully shut down in the event of a power outage.

This eliminates the guess work and need to be onsite to look at batter statistics. Easy to install, easy to operate.

APC UPS network cards were shipped and delivered on time, in original packaging. Installed easily and worked great. Price was competitive.

Fixed to APC SmartUPS 2200, connected to network via RJ45, then few setup steps and worked like a charm.

If you're in IT still managing your APC Smart-UPS devices with the horrible PowerChute software, you're missing out. The only way to properly monitor/maintain your lot is to install this card in each device. Simple to install, get on the network and setup.

Excellent complement to monitor your UPS

Very difficult to setup. Even using the device ip config utility. Tried downloading the driver and installing. Nothing works. Forget getting APC Tech support on the phone. I have never liked APC software and this is my last APC purchase.

This unit is not required unless you are planning on managing multiple remote UPS. If you are deploying many APC UPS, it is essential. The unit supports remote monitoring/control of APC's SMT/SRT series of uninterruptible power supplies via several protocols: SMTP, SNMP (v1&3), HTTP,HTTPS, and SSH (sorta). SMTP or Simple Mail Transport Protocol (email) works very well for alerts (power outages, battery expiry). But configure carefully or it can SPAM your mailbox every 60 seconds until you fix whatever offended it. The SNMP looks to be the best supported option for remote, automated monitoring. Unfortunately for me, I have never found SNMP to be very attractive - too hard to find the data I need. The HTTP/HTTPS web site is very well implemented. It is organized logically (if not quite intuitively) and allows for secure access to configure and control your UPS. It is not useful for automated monitoring or data collection but for management, it is pretty good. The SSH implementation is sadly limited. SSH (secure shell protocol) is my preferred data collection protocol as it is easily automated in most Linux environments. Unfortunately, APC did not implement "public key authentication" on the AP9640. This means that any automation I write to converse with the UPS over SSH will contain a plain text password somewhere in the code - I am not pleased. This was a MAJOR oversight and the reason for the three star review (along with the fact that there is no firmware upgrade mechanism on the AP9640 such that they might repair this in the future). The "shell" once connected via SSH is severely limited but adequate to collect sufficient data for my purposes (input line conditions and battery level). If you are buying just one UPS (and I can highly recommend the SRT1500xla), you really don't need this. If you are buying 20, you need one of these in every one of them.

Better alternative to SmartConnect. Advice: increase the timeout for admin user from the default 3 to 60 minutes (maximum).

Works at intended

Lieferung wie erwartet positiv. Alles geklappt. Karte eingebaut in die USV und Konfiguriert. APC-USV-System läuft stabil.