Don’t let power problems cook your goose this Christmas!

Posted on 6th December 2017 If you’re lucky, Christmas provides an opportunity to escape from the office for a while, especially for a few days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day. Don’t forget though, that what’s good for you is also good for your colleagues, which is only fair after all – isn’t it? However fair or otherwise you deem it to be, the result is that the Christmas period becomes the one time of year when the office is completely deserted for an extended number of days. That in itself isn’t necessarily a problem, especially if it is possible to close your business down entirely for the festive period. Conversely, if your business demands an uninterrupted online presence, albeit at a lower level, then it’s worth considering whether you’ve catered adequately for your IT system’s wellbeing while everyone’s away. Your office could, for example, experience either a power blackout or a power surge; either of these will take down any unprotected IT equipment. If you have already identified such a loss of IT resource, however temporary, as unacceptable, then by now you will almost certainly have a UPS system in place. This will protect against power surges and short-term blackouts – but a longer blackout that compromises the UPS battery autonomy will cause a system crash, or at least an orderly shutdown initiated by the UPS system. Worse than this, some offices, even today, rely on a simple mains filter or take no protective, emergency back up electric supply measures at all. They accept the idea of simply rebooting their system following a power glitch. As they lack a UPS system, any power transient will stop their IT function. Whatever the nature of the stoppage, a problem arises when the office is unpopulated, simply because no-one is there to spot it or initiate a restart. You first become aware of the problem when a user somewhere complains about loss of service availability. Fortunately, a number of answers exist. Firstly, if you don’t already have a UPS system, now could be the time to consider one. There are plenty of cost-effective UPS solutions available, scaled to the needs of small office emergency power systems as well as large data centre power supplies and some could even be with you before Christmas! Remember that a computer crash may not simply mean a temporary loss of resource; it could also lead to permanent hardware damage and a severe loss of data. The next point about a UPS system is that it will almost certainly offer options for communications, with automatic transmission of any error or alarm messages. If you don’t fancy the prospect of receiving one of these messages before finishing your Christmas dinner, speak to your UPS supplier about setting up remote UPS power monitoring, maintenance and repair contract – at an agreed level of service that suits you – and ensure that you aren’t disturbed whilst you are busy enjoying your turkey or when you’ve a few too many eggnogs to drive to the office. Something to consider for 2017, could be a backup generator. Diesel powered generators offer users additional peace of mind, with backup autonomy extended to several hours (rather than a few minutes). Single-phase UPS models from just 5 kVA are available, offering low acoustic noise, low emissions, long run times and economical operation. So whichever system you have in place, here’s to a Merry Christmas and a peaceful, uninterrupted festive season!