It’s been two full months since “Blackout 2003” clobbered 60 million residents in the U.S. and Canada. Have you upgraded your power system yet?
If not, call a friend in Italy. The entire country – 57 million residents – lost power on Sept. 28. Or chat with one of the nearly two million people on the East Coast who lost power for three days thanks to Hurricane Isabel 10 days before.
For small businesses, power control means more than just a few battery back-up units stashed under the desks. Do you know how much power your servers really need? Have you taken any steps to make sure the power going to your servers is voltage regulated or “smoothed”? Can you reboot a server remotely, or does a hung server mean a trip back to the office at midnight?
The good news is that newer operating systems survive ungraceful shutdown much better than in the past. A decade ago, losing power to a server meant rebuilding the file system. That’s not true today for most servers running Windows 2000 or Windows XP, NetWare 5.0 and higher, or recent Linux software.
But that doesn’t mean you won’t suffer problems should a thunderstorm cut power, because even modern operating systems can get scrambled. While you can’t stop blackouts, you can buy equipment that can control many parts of the power infrastructure.
Today’s Uninterruptible Power Supply systems are cheaper and more manageable than ever. Look for units that filter power and keep the output regulated. This means the power from the wall goes to the battery, which then feeds power to the outlet where you plug in the PC. This smoothes brownouts and spikes that can stress (or fry) your computer’s power supply and will extend the life of your systems.
If you have your servers in a rack, buy power monitoring and control equipment that fits onto it. For monitoring your load, look to The Sentry Power Tower from Server Technology, which includes a readout of amps used per circuit. Western Telematics (WTI) offers a power bar that also bolts to the side of the rack but includes a Web server for remotely monitoring and rebooting anything plugged into the bar.
Let me repeat that last bit for those who have driven to the office in the middle of the night to reboot a downed server: You can reboot devices remotely. Some of the newer (and more expensive) systems like the WTI products use a Web server for easy management, but others offer ways to remotely reboot whatever is plugged into the power controller. There are power controllers that connect to the Internet you can remotely access via telnet, as well as units with a modem included, so you can dial in and reboot.
For design help in power control, and tips on keeping your office up and running, check out Availability.com (run by APC, one of the leading UPS manufacturers). You’ll find articles covering a range of subjects (including several from me) valuable to those interested in system uptime.
Last, if you work in a home office – especially in a developing area – your power service likely suffers disruptions due to nearby construction on a regular basis. Some network administrators feel corporate teleworkers and remote offices require only surge protection rather than UPS systems because they don’t run critical servers. Think again. Some applications, such as accounting programs that keep databases open, may get scrambled if shut down by a blackout. One remote support call will cost more than a battery back-up system to keep the computers up long enough to close applications.
