I'm located in Michigan and last night we had a bit of an ice storm. There I was at 3:00 AM, working on my web site when the lights when out in an instant. My home office is in Suite B (the basement) so for a very short time, I felt what it was like to be sightless. I managed to stumble over some sort of large plastic toy and then trip over the couch before I stammered upstairs into at least enough light to find a flashlight. I was all geeked up on Red Bull, Monster and Coffee from the prior evening so I still could not sleep upon finding my bedroom. I fully expected that my phone would be going ballistic the next morning with client calls due to hard drive failures and other power related maladies.
This brings me to my topic. When I talk about a UPS, I don't mean United Parcel Service. As cool as those guys look in their dress browns, I'm talking about Uninterrubtable Power Supplies. These are basically battery units that your computer should be plugged into to protect against power "events" that
could damage your computer equipment. These include power surges, brownouts and power failures.
All of my clients have UPS units that protect their servers. Some have units that protect the client workstations as well but many business owners balk at this extra expense. My recommendation is that every device that participates in the network should be plugged into a UPS. This includes servers, workstations, switches and Internet equipment. This also applies to both home based businesses and larger companies alike.
These units come with software that can monitor the power coming out of the socket and make sure it is clean power. If the UPS detects that utility power is absent and the battery is almost drained, it will shut down the operating system (Some flavor of Windows in most cases) and power the equipment down. This is so much better than a sudden "dirty" power failure that brings the machine down to it's knees before it has a chance to do proper housecleaning. Such an abrubt downage can cause data corruption because the machine never gets a chance to finalize open system and data files.
Make sure that the size of the UPS is suitable to the type of equipment that it is protecting. A file server with dual power supplies and a 6 disk RAID array will drain power faster than a small form factor windows workstation and should have a more powerful UPS protecting it.
A final work of advice is to replace the battery cartridges at least once every 2 years and be sure to run the self test diags at least quarterly. Most units have a warning light that will notify you that the battery is bad. If you see that light, you probably waited too long to replace the battery and it should be done post haste. UPS systems are kinda like an insurance policy. You don't want to spend all of that money only for the thing not to save you the one time you really need it!
Oh yea, about the client calls... the only related problem was a corrupt boot sector that I was able to fix by using XP recovery console. I guess all of those UPSs are doing their jobs!
Please direct all correspondence to quandtster@gmail.com
Thanks for reading!
This brings me to my topic. When I talk about a UPS, I don't mean United Parcel Service. As cool as those guys look in their dress browns, I'm talking about Uninterrubtable Power Supplies. These are basically battery units that your computer should be plugged into to protect against power "events" that
could damage your computer equipment. These include power surges, brownouts and power failures.All of my clients have UPS units that protect their servers. Some have units that protect the client workstations as well but many business owners balk at this extra expense. My recommendation is that every device that participates in the network should be plugged into a UPS. This includes servers, workstations, switches and Internet equipment. This also applies to both home based businesses and larger companies alike.
These units come with software that can monitor the power coming out of the socket and make sure it is clean power. If the UPS detects that utility power is absent and the battery is almost drained, it will shut down the operating system (Some flavor of Windows in most cases) and power the equipment down. This is so much better than a sudden "dirty" power failure that brings the machine down to it's knees before it has a chance to do proper housecleaning. Such an abrubt downage can cause data corruption because the machine never gets a chance to finalize open system and data files.
Make sure that the size of the UPS is suitable to the type of equipment that it is protecting. A file server with dual power supplies and a 6 disk RAID array will drain power faster than a small form factor windows workstation and should have a more powerful UPS protecting it.
A final work of advice is to replace the battery cartridges at least once every 2 years and be sure to run the self test diags at least quarterly. Most units have a warning light that will notify you that the battery is bad. If you see that light, you probably waited too long to replace the battery and it should be done post haste. UPS systems are kinda like an insurance policy. You don't want to spend all of that money only for the thing not to save you the one time you really need it!
Oh yea, about the client calls... the only related problem was a corrupt boot sector that I was able to fix by using XP recovery console. I guess all of those UPSs are doing their jobs!
Please direct all correspondence to quandtster@gmail.com
Thanks for reading!
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