Those great big batteries (UPS) at the side of the server are designed to prevent disaster
striking should your site suffer a
power failure.
I once stopped by at the UPS stand in a trade fair - they had great coffee
and I needed a rest. Now I thought I knew about UPS devices, but the
salesmen showed me some extra capabilities for disaster protection.
The most important job of the UPS is to cut-in when the power fails
UPS also protects against 'brown outs' when the light dims but the power
stays on.
UPS will also smooth voltage preventing power surges during electric storms.
Additional UPS Features
The system I saw at the trade fair had 'bells and whistles' like short term capacitors and diesel
engines that would deliver conventional AC power. It also had
microprocessor sensors and switch over.
A Cautionary Tale of an UPS disaster
I sometimes take on work on the basis of 'no fix - no fee'. So I went to
company advertising for a consultant to find the bottleneck on their network. To
my delight got a contract. However, when I turned up, there were long
faces all round, the server room had been burnt down.
Before I abandoned the job, I thought at least they could tell me what had
happened. After a long pause, the junior techie blurted out that the UPS
spilt neat acid onto a pile paper, the acid burnt the paper starting a fire.
Cardboard boxes in the room also caught fire and that
in turn burnt down the server. Well no work for me, but a moral to one
and all, add: ' I must service the UPS' to your disaster recovery plan.
Guy's Challenge - Download
this free device backup utility
(CatTools)
CatTools is a free program for backing up configuration settings on
hardware devices. Here is Guy's challenge. If you
download CatTools, then it will not only take care of backups, but
also it will show you something new about the hardware on you
network. I could give you a money back guarantee - but CatTools is
already free! Thus, I just make a techie to techie challenge, you
will learn more about your network if you:
Guy Recommends: Orion's NPM - Network Performance Monitor
Orion's performance monitor is designed for detecting network outages. NPM makes it easy to see what's working, and what needs your attention.
This utility guides you through creating network maps. It also helps troubleshooting by indicating whether the root cause is faulty equipment, or resource overload.
