How to Ensure Data Center Continuity During Severe Weather
Severe weather can wreak havoc on data centers, leading to costly downtime and repairs. Not only can strong winds cause physical damage, but rain and lightning can cause electrical problems and even power outages. Any amount of downtime can be expensive for your high-tech facility and put your business continuity at risk. This is why you must have reliable monitoring, backup power, and preventive maintenance services in place to make sure your data center can recover instantly. Continue reading to learn about the systems and services needed to ensure business continuity and keep your operations running no matter what.
Use Advanced Monitoring Systems
The first step required to ensure business continuity is to install real-time monitoring systems for your data center’s environment and equipment. Devices like the Vertiv™ Geist™ Environmental Monitors observe and report your data center’s temperature, humidity, and moisture levels. This way you’ll know as soon as your facility’s environment starts to change. And due to the precise conditions required to store the technology in your data center, being able to act quickly when outside weather affects the indoor environment is crucial.
It isn’t enough to monitor temperature and humidity inside your data center, you must also keep an eye on overall data center power usage. Facility continuity is a must, even during severe weather. This is why you need monitoring systems like the Vertiv™ Environet™ Alert that notify you of any dips in equipment performance and data center power consumption. With this knowledge you can perform preventive maintenance which will strengthen your equipment, making it more likely to stand up against threats from storms.
Implement a Reliable Backup Power System
When even a minute of downtime can cost you, it’s important to have a strong backup power system in place to ensure the continuity of your data center. Severe weather often causes power outages which can lead to data loss, unexpected downtime, and expensive repercussions. This is why you need backup generators, redundant cooling systems, and Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) units to keep your facility running even after a power outage occurs.
UPS systems are especially important to backup power strategies since they provide emergency electricity as soon as the main power grid fails. This gives your facility time to connect to the main backup generator and properly shut down any equipment. Not only do UPS systems prevent downtime, but they also minimize data loss and equipment damage that may have been caused by abrupt power outages.
If you want to ensure that your facility will have backup power when you need it, you need to take care of your UPS systems. Preventive maintenance is the best way to do this since it catches and fixes any inefficiencies before you need the UPS to run perfectly during a power outage. However, preventive maintenance should not be taken lightly. This service should be performed regularly by skilled technicians who examine every part of a UPS for signs of potential failure. From there, these experts can perform the necessary services to keep your UPS healthy and ready to operate.
Perform Regular Battery Testing
Both UPS systems and generators use batteries to provide backup power to data centers when the main power grid goes out. Keeping these batteries healthy is an important part of ensuring your facility will be able to run if access to the main power supply is lost. Start taking care of your batteries by scheduling regular battery testing. This service makes sure that your batteries can hold and deliver the power required of them, preventing overloading and helping your batteries last longer. The healthier your batteries are the more likely they are to be able to power your data center and ensure business continuity.
Conduct Preventive Maintenance on Generators
Just like how your UPS systems need to be cared for to work properly, the same is true for your backup generators. Whereas UPS systems keep the power on short term, generators provide backup power for extended periods of time. As a result, they need to be in exceptionally good health to ensure data center continuity for longer periods where the main power grid may be out. Preventive maintenance helps keep your generators in optimal condition by regularly checking for inefficiencies, exercising the engine, and testing their batteries. All these steps ensure that your generator is ready to provide backup power for your facility at a moment’s notice and prevent costly downtime.
Learn How to Keep Your Data Center Safe!
Severe weather is just one of the many risks data centers face. Ensuring business continuity is more important now than ever before. That’s why you need to prepare your equipment for disasters and power loss so your facility can continue to operate even when problems arise. Weber & Associates offers various monitoring systems, backup power units, and preventive maintenance services meant to keep your data center running no matter what. Contact us today to talk to one of our experts about your facility’s needs and get the right equipment to optimize all your operations.