Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

People are quick to look toward terrorism as the cause for interruptions with the Internet, communications and power outages, but there are a lot of situations where nature, outdated equipment and accidents are the causes of a lot of issues that we face on a daily basis.

On the morning of July 9, people witnessed black and red smoke, as well as flames swirling up from manhole covers and grates in Philadelphia. This resulted in power outages, some of which trapped people in elevators, and led to traffic problems and evacuations. Emergency crews were called to the scene and the fires were put out in a matter of hours.

According to Philadelphia’s Channel 6 Action News, PECO (News - Alert) (Philadelphia Electric Company) was also called to the scene to deal with the outages. All over the East Coast we have been experiencing hot and humid weather this summer, and the loss of power on hot days means a loss of business for many companies.

Most electric companies lower the amount of power being supplied to their customers in the hopes of preventing brownouts and the always-damaging blackouts. Over-usage can also cause transformers to work overtime to the point of exploding, causing fires and outages.

While we complain about the lights not being as bright or the air conditioners not cooling things down as expected, these types of power cuts can have a significant effect on electrical equipment, especially computers. It is issues such as these that remind us how important it is to ensure that we have sufficient backup options so that servers, computers and sensitive electronic equipment can be safely shut down.

Regardless of the time of day, when the power goes out, there is no telling when it will be restored. The question to ask is what can be done to try to save as much information and equipment during situations such as this. The answer is a simple one, but it is also one that most people do not take advantage of. Connecting the more sensitive equipment and data storage devices to an uninterruptable power supply (UPS), such as those provided by Minuteman Power Technologies, could save a lot of money and headaches.

When you combine factors such as the sensitivity of today’s equipment with the frequency of severe storms and transformer problems disabling power on what seems like a much more regular basis than ever before, it would be a no-brainer to have a UPS at several strategic locations throughout your home and business.

I have been on both ends of the situation where power was lost and all the equipment shut down at once. Once I was able to get everything up and running, I found that a significant amount of data was lost and it was a long and arduous process to restore everything from backups.

On the other hand I have also been in the situation where although the power went out, my Minuteman UPSs kicked in and I was able to systematically shut down every piece of equipment and suffered no data loss or equipment failures. Seems like a no-brainer.