BrandPost: Can Your IT Infrastructure Withstand Extreme Weather?
It seems that every three to five years, the impact of inclement weather, storms, and floods appears to peak. And the periods in between weather events seem to be getting shorter. As the number and severity of storms continues to increase far beyond what we have typically experienced, many small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) are now forced to re-evaluate how well their IT infrastructure can continue to support the organization when there is a weather event. This is becoming a critical issue, as many SMBs may find themselves without power for multiple days, which has been the case with the recent nor-easters plaguing the East Coast.
Too many SMBs have not assessed the ability of their power and cooling infrastructure to support critical IT equipment in the event of a short- or long-term power outage. Despite frequent and substantial changes at the hardware and application levels, power management and UPS solutions may be decades old. The impact of today’s digital business could not even be conceived of, let alone considered, in the design of these older, legacy backup systems. Further, many of the batteries that provide emergency power haven’t been changed or maintained in years. And many older UPS products don’t have intelligent battery management or integration with power management software to ensure they perform as needed. As many of my acquaintances who are SMB IT leaders have told me, “We just hope that when something happens, we can stay up and running.”