Uninterruptible power supply systems

Mike Rea, MD of AEC UK, explains about keeping the power on and shows how uninterruptible power supplies save data from corruption and ultimately save companies time and money.

Until recently, companies were barely curious in evaluating UPS before purchase, whereas purchasing a computer involved detailed appraisal.

The attitude of the user was that the vendor knew what was best for the system and was the best judge of what was required.

From the point of view of a professional installer, a UPS system was a grudge purchase for most customers and was quite likely to be added as an afterthought (usually after several expensive malfunctions had been diagnosed as power problems).

Nowadays, anyone managing a network knows that uninterruptible power supplies are essential to save data corruption and ultimately for saving their company time and money.

If the power to servers is turned off without properly shutting down the server, data can be corrupted, so all servers and any PCs that run critical applications should be protected from power outages.

The cost to the company in the time that it takes to restore the data from backups, plus the interruption of service while the server is rebooted, can easily run to thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pounds per h