Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

If you are like any other person who is slowly tiring of the 9 to 5 routine (especially with the weather finally being so great), you might be busy spending your lunch breaks canvassing the best places to go on vacation this summer – and we are talking about a real vacation that includes an airplane at all. And while the top picks for summer getaways might definitely be places like the Bahamas, Florida and Bermuda, there is that little thing called hurricane season which surreptitiously sneaks in around June 1 and lasts until November 30 – just long enough so that you have to consider booking trip insurance along with your flight if you really want to take a gamble.

While hurricane season also spells disaster for ocean-wishing individuals, it can also wreak havoc on businesses as power outages and brownouts becoming increasingly more feasible.

“With increased temperatures, severe storms are a greater possibility across the country in the spring and summer months, and as summer wears on the threat of hurricanes becomes a greater concern in coastal areas,” Duston Nixon, marketing communications specialist for Minuteman UPS/Para Systems (News - Alert), a provider of power protection technologies, told TMCnet. “Researchers at Colorado State University are predicting a slightly less active hurricane season than normal, but this still puts the probability for landfall of a major storm at 28 percent for the East Coast alone.”

And many companies won’t want to roll the dice when it comes to outages as 50 percent of companies have had their reputations damaged to some extent by IT outages and downtime can cost a company an average of $150,000 per year, according to survey results.  Moreover, according to industry experts, the average company experiences 14 hours of IT downtime per year, but despite these scary statistics, 28 percent of companies haven't tested their backup plans, and more than three-quarters have found tape backup failures.

So for those companies that want to always place bets on remaining up, Minuteman stands ready with its line of uninterruptible power supplies.

“We have a complete line of products designed to provide substantial runtimes during power outages, and naturally businesses desire the most runtime possible when facing the prospect of storm damage,” Nixon said. “Our Endeavor and EnterprisePlus products also have the capability of unlimited runtimes via external XL and EXL Battery Packs, making them an ideal solution for backup after a major storm.”

Now might be a better time than ever before to abandon that “not me” mentality when it comes to losing power, as power outages and brownouts might become extremely commonplace in the coming weeks.

“As the potential for storms, hurricanes, and temperature-related outages increases, business owners and administrators simply cannot afford to be without a sound power protection plan,” Nixon said. “A properly sized and maintained system of surge protection, UPSs, and other power products will ensure that a power outage won’t turn into a disaster.”