Ensuring your business doesn’t get caught out by UPS outage.
The need for effective network and systems monitoring was recently highlighted by the May outage suffered by BA. Their systems failure not only caused days of travel chaos for customers, it also led to BA suffering significant financial loss and major damage to its reputation.
The failure was blamed on a datacentre UPS system failure, however this is unlikely to be the whole story as the secondary disaster recovery facility was also affected by the outage. What really happened is still unclear, but the fact is, having the right monitoring solution in place can help you to avoid a similar catastrophe.
Why is a UPS so important?
Having your data replicated to a datacentre means your files will be protected against loss or corruption in the event of a disaster. To maintain the integrity of your data as well as ensuring your ability to access it, you must remain online. A continuous supply of power is essential for this to happen, which can be achieved with a UPS.
If properly configured, a UPS can have two functions in the event of an outage.
- The primary function is to keep your systems running until mains power is resumed, eliminating any downtime that could interrupt the normal operation of your business.
- The secondary function is to smooth out any spikes in electrical current, which could cause a power source to blow. Smoothing out these surges helps protect your hardware and its components from damage.
Having the correct monitoring software solution in place means that your UPS resilience can be ensured, and problems caused by power surges can be immediately identified, smoothed and reported.
Safeguarding your data in the event of an outage.
After making sure your system is fault-tolerant, there are three other things to consider when safe-guarding your critical data:
SAN (Storage Area Network)
Maintaining the integrity of your critical data can also be done by separating it from the server using a SAN (Storage Area Network). The intelligent controlling of dual power supplies should also be implemented to ensure continuous protection.
Disaster Recovery
With a good disaster recovery solution, a replication server is dedicated solely to the roles of backup and export. All servers that are in a DR mode can be exported out in a clean and consistent manner to ensure data integrity so that it cannot be influenced by a failure at the primary site.
Disaster Recovery testing
Constantly testing your DR solution means that you can be secure in the knowledge that should an unplanned event happen your contingency will work when you really need it to. Avoiding a high level of disruption to your business due to a UPS failure could save you and your customers days of frustration and hassle.
Outsourcing your network monitoring to ASL makes sense.
At ASL, we can provide you with effective network and systems monitoring that protects your critical data. This includes safeguarding the resilience of your UPS, and the implementation and testing of a comprehensive disaster recovery solution that’s tailored to your needs.
To find out more about our networking and systems monitoring solutions, ask your Sales manager or call us on 0345 862 0350.
