Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

A power outage can take place anytime and anywhere, without any warning to customers using electricity from their service provider. This past weekend in fact, Pacific Gas and Electric Company customers along a large portion of California's Central Coast experienced a power outage. It started between 9:24 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. and lasted for several hours for most customers before services were returned. By Monday morning, only one customer in Santa Maria remained without electricity.

The largest city affected by the power outage was Santa Maria, which has about 100,000 residents, but other cities also experienced outages along with thousands of their residents. According to PG&E (News - Alert), the cause of the outage was equipment failure at a substation.

Whether your power outage lasted for several hours or the whole nigh, the inconvenience it causes can result in losses to your equipment, business and any collateral damage associated with the outage.

Today's households and businesses use technologies that are sensitive to power surges, spikes and outages, which can result in damages totaling thousands of dollars. Computers, HDTV's, Blu-ray players, point-of-sale systems (POS'), telephone systems and mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets can all be vulnerable if they are plugged in at the time of the power fluctuation or loss.

Using the right set of power protection system can ensure these devices will power down appropriately, avoiding any loss to the device or the data contained within these devices.

The Santa Maria Police Department had to switch to generate power to ensure emergency services could be carried out, but not everyone has a generator handy in their garage or place of business.

Luckily, Minuteman Power Technologies provides battery backup (UPS), surge protection, power management, power distribution and monitoring to ensure your device are protected at all times.

Considering power anomalies can take place any time, one of the best solutions Minuteman provides allows individuals and organizations to monitor the devices using UPS monitoring software & SNMP (simple network management protocol) accessories.

Using the SentryPlus power monitoring and management software allows the user to:

• Plan a schedule to shutdown, restart, test UPS and control receptacles; Auto-Save files and graceful operating system shutdown, multi-computer shutdown/wakeup through TCP/IP network
• Programmable actions (FlexAction)
• Notification via pager, e-mail, audible alarm, network broadcast and SNMP trap
• Real-time meters display of UPS data (voltage, frequency, loading percentage,…)
• Remote monitoring, control and configuration through TCP/IP network
• Monitor all UPSs at a glance in a LAN