Different distributions such as Debian and Centos behave differently when trying to shutdown your system.
shutdown -H now on Debian does not do what you'd expect. The system won't power down, it will halt and do everything but power down.
shutdown -PH now will do the job though (actually power the system off). This is important to test especially if you are not near the system. If you just use -P it forcefully shuts off which is not........