The UPS Your Business Can’t Live Without

In case you’re wondering — no, we’re not talking about the Post Office!

 A UPS or Uninterruptable Power Supply, is a battery backup power source for computers, servers, and network equipment. When the power goes out, a UPS will keep your equipment going long enough for you to save any documents and properly shut down your machine. Why is this so important?

Because, if you are actively working on a document when the power goes out, 1 of 3 things will happen:

1. Your document will not be saved and you’ll lose it. The auto-save feature in Windows often stops working when the computer is unexpectedly shut down and unless you manually save it just before the power goes out, it’s likely not to be there when the power comes back on.
2. The file is there — you can see it — but it’s unusable. Sudden power outages can corrupt open files, even if you saved them. The document opens, but its garbled characters make it look like a really long ransom note! To get it back, you’ll have to recreate it.
3. You’re really, really lucky and you are able to recover your document. Count your lucky stars because on average, a business can experience 15 power outages a year depending on your location and weather patterns. You may be lucky this time, but what about next time?

While many home PCs and non-critical workstations can live without a UPS, a server cannot. Servers run 24/7/365, providing files and services to your entire office. A sudden shutdown can corrupt files on the server causing more widespread damage and can put your whole company out of commission. Don’t let that happen.

We recommend that, at a minimum, all servers be protected by a UPS; and for additional protection, hook up your workstations to a UPS also. Doing so will give you additional protection and peace-of-mind.

Also, keep in mind that like any hardware, UPS units only last so long. Units 5 or more years old probably won’t have the charge to keep systems up for long if the power goes out. So, check your UPS units often. For example, XSolutions checks the UPS units we manage on a weekly basis.

While this seems obvious to many, you’d be surprised on how many occasions we’ll walk into an office and see the server, located in a small hot closet with no airflow, and plugged directly into a consumer-grade power strip along with other network equipment. A power outage or sudden surge is all it would take to knock out their entire network.

Treat your network equipment as you would any valuable business asset, because we all know that when your network goes down, your entire business comes to a screeching halt. Protect your network and your business. Make sure it’s set up properly.

 

XSolutions is a Managed Services Provider (MSP) and provides 24/7/365 remote monitoring, scheduled workstation and server maintenance, Help Desk Services, Cloud & Hosted Services, Backup/Disaster Recovery, and Software Development. Call us at (845) 362-9675 and see how we can help your company.