Electricity is one of the things that IT most commonly takes for granted. Which is kind of amusing, since 100% of all IT is just corralling power to different places for different uses.
This blog series is going to be talking about wall power and why IT needs to put more of a focus on it. The timing of this series is also specific – in the Midwest and Central US, we’re about to be heading into our stormy season, spring/summer. Power matters at this time of year because as the storms/tornadoes roll in, power often blinks, surges, under-volts, or goes out completely.
However, it’s not only storms that cause power outages. So even if you don’t reside in the Midwest or Central US, you’re going to want to stick with us throughout this series. Here is a prime example of why, which happened to Mirazon just a few weeks ago:
It was a sunny day in Louisville – but storms weren’t the problem. Construction was working around the business park Mirazon resides in, and the construction cut the wrong power line – leaving businesses, and ourselves, wondering what in the world was going on during such a nice day.
Not one week later, a terrible storm front (yes, this time it was a storm) made its way through the Midwest – and Louisville, KY fell right in its path. Winds were upwards of 80mph, causing SEVERE power outages across the region – including Mirazon. But because Mirazon was prepared for the unprepared, we were able to prevent any data corruption or damage from happening. During BOTH of these unexpected events.
Could you say the same thing if this happened to you and your business?
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Most computer/networking equipment does NOT like having any type of interruptions or changes in its power. At best, the device’s power supplies will get a bit grumpy, but everything keeps working. At worst, the power supply blows up and takes the whole device with it.
Devices can fail in a variety of ways when there are power issues though, including sometimes just getting quirky. Recovery from this event can be as easy as turning the device back on and waiting for it to boot and/or having corruption in the OS/Data, to having to fully replace the device.
All of these things make late winter to early spring a great time to validate that your environment is ready for these situations. Check your backups, offsite backups, and the strategy around all of business continuity. Make sure your UPS(es) are in place, are well serviced, are properly configured, and tested. There’s nothing quite as disconcerting for an IT person as walking into a dead silent server room.
Moving forward we’re going to talk about a few things in particular:
- What a UPS does, and how it does it
- How to size UPS
- How to take care of UPS, and making you, and your servers aware of power issues,
- External considerations (cooling, long term running, etc.)
Check out our next blog, where we will be talking about number one, the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
If you have any additional questions or concerns, please call 502-240-0404 or send us an email at info@mirazon.com.