The Importance of the UPS

Written by Linzi Cooper

Friday, 26 November 2010 11:45

A UPS, or Uninterruptible Power Supply, is a battery backup power source for computers, servers and network equipment. When the power goes out, a UPS will keep your equipment going long enough to save any documents and shut down the machine properly. Why should you care?

Because, if you are actively working on a document when the power goes out, 1 of 3 things could happen:

Your document could be gone forever. The auto-save feature in Windows often stops working when the computer is unexpectedly shut off. Unless you manually saved the document multiple times while working on it, it's not likely to be there after a power outage.

The file is there, but it's useless. A power outage can corrupt any open files, even if you've saved them. The document opens back up on start-up, but its garbled characters make it look like a really long ransom note! To get it back, you have to re-create it all over again.

You get really, really lucky. The average business will experience 12 power outages a year. If you are fortunate enough to recover your document after a power outage, count your lucky stars; you probably won't be so lucky next time!

While many home PCs or non-critical workstations can live without a UPS, a server cannot. Servers run 24-7 providing files and services to a number of other machines. A sudden shutdown can corrupt files on the server causing more widespread damage.

We recommend all our smart clients get a UPS device for the servers in their office at a minimum and, for additional protection, for all the workstations.

Essential Business Technologies on LinkedIn

Home
Managed IT Support Services
Microsoft Small Business Specialist
Privacy Policy
IT Services

City of London office
6th Floor
55 King William Street
London
EC4R 9AD
Telephone: +44 (0)20 3327 0540

Tunbridge Wells office
18 Church Road
Tunbridge Wells
Kent
TN1 1JP
Telephone: +44 (0)1892 277 890

Registered office
Festival Way
Festival Park
Stoke on Trent
ST1 5SQ
Registration number 02754063

Essential Business Technologies is a
trading name of Software Automation
Services UK Limited and is
Registered in England

Vat Registration GB 618 5816 19

Take Control of Your IT Costs - Give Us Some Details And We'll Give You A Quote!

If you are looking at your IT support costs and require a quote for supporting your IT systems, tell us more and you too could soon be receiving superior support from one of the UK's first IT Managed Services companies, where smart innovative solutions, 24/7 system monitoring using cutting-edge technology, proactive, reliable support and a personal service is standard.

(Please complete each field)