It’s happened to everyone: a power surge or outage occurs at the busiest part of the day, just when you’re almost finished working on an important project.
If you’re using a laptop, like so many of us have been for the last two months, your work will probably be fine. But if you’re working on a desktop, even a short power blink can cause a system to restart and data to be lost. That loss can be compounded if a power outage affects a company’s overall IT infrastructure, sending servers, networks, and printers offline.
That’s what makes a reliable battery backup—otherwise known as an uninterruptible power supply, or UPS unit—so important. These backups serve as a frontline protection for your devices and your data, providing continuous power even when the primary source of electricity goes out. In many cases, they also regulate voltage so that when regular services do come back on, computers and other hardware won’t be damaged by power surges.
The length of time a battery backup unit can sustain the hardware plugged into it varies. But at a minimum, it should allow you time to save your work and properly shut down machines while you wait for normal power to return.
If you aren’t using a UPS to protect against outages and keep your systems running smoothly, you stand to lose a lot—data, devices, and so much more. With summer here and the threat from hurricanes, wildfires, and heat waves heightened, it’s time to work with a trusted IT provider to get UPS units in place so you can protect your business.
First off, good job. The next question, though, is what condition are your UPS units in? Battery backups are used infrequently, so it can be easy to neglect their maintenance—or to even lose track of how long they’ve been around. Typically, the regular life cycle of a UPS unit’s built-in battery backup is three to four years. If yours is that old, it’s possible that it won’t have enough strength left to power your devices in the event of a power outage.
A backup unit’s battery level can be negatively impacted in other ways, too: by frequent discharge and charge events, which affect voltage regulation, or by slow and steady battery deterioration, which drains capacity. An older, failing, or even dying UPS battery can leave you hanging—and you often won’t realize it until the moment your business needs that reliable source of uninterruptible power the most.
With summer here and forecasters predicting busy hurricane and wildfire seasons paired with a hot summer, it’s time to draw up a smart strategy for battery backups that protects your data and your devices. At CMIT Solutions, we view UPS units as one brick in the wall of comprehensive cybersecurity, treating them with the same focused attention as desktops, laptops, servers, smartphones, tablets, and printers.
A trusted IT provider like CMIT Solutions can help your business assess existing equipment, recommend upgrades that work within your budget, and monitor and maintain systems in the years to come. We provide 24/7 technical support that keeps your battery backup (and the devices plugged into it) running smoothly. In short, we worry about IT so you don’t have to. Contact us today to find out more.