I need to find a workstation class UPS that will allow me to monitor battery health and send alerts when the batteries need to be replaced. I know I can use a snmp/web/ethernet enabled UPS, but would like to keep the costs down somewhat for this project. Does anyone have any experience with the USB based UPS's that use a locally installed agent to send alerts either through email or snmp trap? Have you found them to be reliable? Any gotchas that I should know about?
If it matters, the UPS's will power workstations at a dispatch center and will need to supply 400W - 500W of power for minimum 20 minutes.
Thanks!