Schneider Electric PowerChute

Schneider Electric PowerChute — UPS Management & Shutdown Software

PowerChute is Schneider Electric’s industry-leading UPS management and safe shutdown software, trusted by IT and facilities managers worldwide to protect servers, workstations, and critical equipment during power failures. Simple to deploy and reliable in operation, PowerChute has been the benchmark for UPS management software for decades — and the current range reflects the full breadth of modern IT environments, from physical servers to large-scale virtualised infrastructure.

Power Solutions supplies three variants of PowerChute, each designed for a specific deployment scenario. Our team can help you identify the right edition for your environment and UPS hardware.

PowerChute Business Edition

PowerChute Business Edition is designed for small to mid-size physical server environments, providing centralized UPS monitoring and management across multiple APC UPS units on your network.

Through a single management console, IT managers can monitor UPS status, battery health, load levels, and runtime estimates in real time. In the event of a power failure, PowerChute Business Edition executes a controlled, sequential shutdown of connected servers and equipment — protecting data and reducing the risk of hardware damage from an uncontrolled power loss.

Best suited to: Physical server environments with one or more networked APC UPS units, where centralized monitoring and safe shutdown are the primary requirements.

Key features

• Centralized monitoring of multiple UPS units from a single console
• Real-time visibility of load, battery status, and estimated runtime
• Automated graceful shutdown of servers and workstations during extended outages
• Event logging and email alerting
• Compatible with a wide range of APC Smart-UPS and Back-UPS Pro models

PowerChute Network Shutdown

PowerChute Network Shutdown is designed for virtualized environments, providing agentless UPS monitoring and automated shutdown for VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, and other leading hypervisor platforms. Because it operates without requiring an agent on each virtual machine, it’s well suited to environments where deploying and maintaining per-VM software is impractical.

During a power event, PowerChute Network Shutdown communicates directly with your virtualization host to initiate an orderly shutdown of virtual machines and the host itself — ensuring data integrity and a clean recovery when power is restored.

Best suited to: Virtualized server environments running VMware, Hyper-V, or similar platforms, where agentless shutdown and hypervisor-level integration are required.

Key features

• Agentless architecture — no software required on individual virtual machines
• Native integration with VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Nutanix AHV
• Coordinated shutdown sequencing across virtual machines and hosts
• Support for APC Smart-UPS with network management card
• Event logging, alerting, and shutdown activity reporting

PowerChute Serial Shutdown

PowerChute Serial Shutdown provides reliable UPS monitoring and safe shutdown for servers and workstations connected to a UPS via a serial cable interface. While newer deployments typically use networked UPS management, PowerChute Serial Shutdown remains an important solution for environments using older APC UPS hardware or equipment without network management card support.

Best suited to: Environments with legacy APC UPS units connected via serial interface, or simpler single-server deployments where a network management card is not in place.

Key features

• Safe, automated shutdown triggered by UPS power events
• Compatible with APC UPS units using serial communication
• Lightweight footprint with straightforward installation and configuration
• Suitable for physical servers, workstations, and single-system deployments

Which PowerChute edition do I need?

Whether you’re deploying PowerChute for the first time or migrating from an older version, our team will make sure you have the right edition correctly configured for your UPS hardware and IT environment.