Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

When natural disaster strikes, one of the last things people think about is technology. After this week’s massive earthquake in California’s wine country, authorities scrambled to take care of the injured, put out fires and clear roads. And while at least 70,000 customers were left without power following the quake, tweets and other social media commentary began trickling out almost immediately following the disaster, keeping the rest of the world up to date.

The importance of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and power management and protection in the face of a disaster cannot be underestimated. Not only are these devices important for saving and protecting sensitive data, but they are a key component in getting critical municipal infrastructure back online after a severe disruption. For instance, power had been nearly fully restored to customers in the Napa region by Monday morning and 20 of the 60 water-main breaks in the region had been isolated.

Continuous communications and data flow during a severe emergency are absolutely crucial to keeping public and private systems functioning successfully so that critical needs may be addressed. Power protection products like the Minuteman line from Para Systems (News - Alert) offer important stability and consistency during times of turmoil and disruption. For instance, the company recently partnered with GE on a line of three-phase UPS solutions. These are geared toward facilities that need to back up large electrical loads like data centers, large enterprises and critical infrastructure systems.

The company’s online UPS solutions are designed to back up critical applications like large servers, network devices and industrial equipment. Minuteman also offers surge suppressors, power distribution units (PDUs) and remote power management for controlling connected servers, network equipment and security devices, which is crucial in a state of emergency.

While power protection may not be the first thing that comes to mind in a natural disaster, it’s an important part of the critical infrastructure that keeps things running relatively smoothly when events like the Napa earthquake occur. Not only are public networks reliant on power backup, but private organizations cannot afford to overlook this key element to keep their data safe and secure in the event of an emergency.