Power Failure Bulletproof ::: yes! I have half-ton of UPS.
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@johnpoz thx. I'm small potatoes - just wishing I could get an extra Gig for a comfort margin on an SG-1100
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Well, if you really need 24/7 power protection, in addition to a UPS you need a backup generator of some sort.
Years ago, when I worked in a major telecom office, most things ran on -48V DC and huge battery banks (about 7,000A total load) with standby diesels. For AC powered devices we had what was called "no break" power, where the incoming AC turned an 8 ton flywheel and alternator. If the power dropped, a clutch would kick in, connecting a diesel to pick up the load. This would happen in a few seconds, with the flywheel carrying the load in the mean time, while also starting the diesel. This may be a bit much for your needs, but that's the sort of thinking you have to do. That is short and long term backup. A UPS handles the short term, but you also need an alternate power source for long term. Also, as Fukushima and Hurricane Sandy showed, you may also want to protect your system from floods.
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I find the ZFS option an excellent idea to test, I'll read more on the subject.
The UPS I have is exactly that of -48Vdc, and really, it won't drain, I believe it would feed the system for a week. The only problems that we had, were human related.
About the remote access by a middle man... that's topic for hours of debate. Most of these sites are in places were most people didn't knew a computer 5 years ago, others, 5 days ago. The network is the way that we support and make them evolve. Also I install telemetry systems, biometric, VoIP and CCTV. So even employes without user (low user) skills, can be integrated.
About the read-only question as per the old Pfsense embedded?
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@JKnott We have generators, nowadays they have a "computer" controller that you just define the low limit (46 Vdc) and it kicks in. Comap controllers, from Czech Republic, do amazing things and integration!
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With generators make sure your transfer switch holds in the "neutral" position for a small period of time. Mine all stay there for five seconds. You do not want the power to come in "out of phase". That alone causes things like tripped circuit breakers and smoked power supplies.
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@chpalmer Thanks for the heads up. Fortunately our main business is supplying energy to telecom and banking.
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One other thing to consider is computers that support multiple power supplies. I used to have an IBM Netfinity server, which had 3 power supplies, any 2 of which were sufficient. You'd then have multiple power sources. This sort of thing was also common in telecom, whether AC or DC powered.
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I have 4 gig of ram, and am using ZFS, the memory usage averages lower than 50%, and that is even with ramdisks.
Firewall's are not heavy i/o, so the memory usage should be fine, but if it is a concern you can cap the memory usage for ZFS in a tunable.
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@chrcoluk Thank for your tips, I have resources, RAM is not a problem.
About the ZFS, is it possible to make 2 partitions and use them as mirror?
I inclined in this moment on a 2 SSD disk, mirros, ZFS. I think it will attend the power failure needs.When you have ZFS and RAM disk, can you use a USB/SD memory? Does it read/write a lot (with RAM disk)?
Cheers,
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If you have 2 disks, then the best is to setup a zfs pool in mirror configuration. You can do that in the installer.
I dont know what you mean by USB/sd memory.
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@chrcoluk I've decided in that way.
ZFS with 2 SSD in mirror, and RAM disk.
Hope it will run ok.
