Monsoon Season – Is Your Power Supply Working

Southern Arizona is a wonderful and diverse environment and July and August bring in the rains of the monsoons! While these spectacular light shows are wonderful to watch and the rains cool off the hot desert if only for a few hours, they also bring lightning, Power loss, and other power issues that can cause issues across the valley. Protection of your computers, servers and network equipment is vital all year round but especially this time of year.

So what should you do to make sure you are protected?

  • Surge Protectors: Surge Protectors are good for equipment such as TV’s and Monitors as it will protect them against power spikes caused by lightning but for more expensive equipment or equipment that needs to stay on during a short outage use a UPS.
  • UPS’s or Uninterruptible Power Supplies are the way to go for computers, servers and networking equipment like switches and routers. UPS’s (when they are spec’d out to the right size) can keep your systems up and running for up to 20 minutes in a power outage and there are even smart UPS’s that, when they are going to run out of power can power down your computer or server gracefully instead of just cutting of the power.
    To get the right size UPS you need to check the power ratings of the devices connected, which can be a bit of a challenge and should probably be handled by your IT provider.
  • If you need to be up longer then 20 minutes you will need to look into generators. Some of the new generators will switch on as the power goes out, keeping your equipment running for extended time periods. These units tend to get pretty expensive and need to be installed by a professional to ensure proper operation but when you absolutely positively need to be running, there is no better solution.

Things to remember:

While surge protectors and low-end UPS’s will protect against Power spikes they have a harder time dealing with power drops or brownouts (where the power circuit is degraded but still operational) in these events damage can be caused to computers and sensitive systems and it is best to look at higher-priced models of UPS’s that continuously run from the battery rather than switching to battery operation when they are activated.

While most of these devices will protect your equipment, again consider the better quality surge and UPS’s as most of them will offer replacement plans if it is found their device did not do what it is supposed to do and protect your systems.

As always if you have questions or need further help deciding on what is best for your environment and equipment feel free to contact us at sales@acaciait.com or 520-751-0888

Greg Durnan is the Owner/President of AcaciaIT and very active in the business community of Southern Arizona. One of the founding members of the Greater Vail Area Chamber of Commerce and Chair-Elect of the Oro Valley Chamber of Commerce he is very concerned about the needs of businesses in Arizona. He also strives to educate clients on Computer and Network Security through Lunch and Learns, articles, and webinars.
On the weekends he enjoys spending time with his wife and son at their ranch in Vail and working with horses.