With hurricane season along much of the U.S. coastline nigh upon us we thought it time to talk about protecting the data center during times of weather-related disaster. A Seacoast Online article talked about how companies should have an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) to go along with their biometric security.

Power outages can be disastrous
Even if a big storm doesn’t make a direct hit on the data center, power losses in big storms – summer or winter – could leave huge impacts if the power goes out and private and sensitive information is compromised or lost. Data center security, server cabinets and all technical infrastructure need to have power to sustain protection and security. The UPS can keep things running in the event of  a power outage and control the power and battery feeds to critical equipment, said the source.

Size matters, really
Sizing the UPS is vital to keeping power intact throughout the facility. What the power source does is pretty much standardized when it comes from its manufacturer but it needs to be sized in order to retain as much battery power as possible, according to the article. During a complete power failure the UPS will only last about 10 minutes. That gives company maintenance and security personnel enough time to shut-down crucial operating systems without the loss of data that can result from a cold “scram” or shut-down explained the source. No matter how much biometric access control there is if the power goes out none of it works and security may be compromised.

Making the effort
An Information Week article talks of several tips for companies who are located in Tornado Alley in the Midwest or along the Atlantic, Gulf or Baja coasts for protecting against critical losses due to power outages. Of course having a UPS is the first step but company executives and security staffers really need to know their mission critical applications and perform failover tests on a regular and random basis.

Biometric security and fingerprint scanning are virtually unduplicable technologies to protect the data center from unauthorized physical access and prevent loss from the inside of a company’s infrastructure but preventing power outages is something that many operations neglect and Information Week said a single emergency can take a data center down. Not letting the weather or other natural disasters impact the company’s data stream is vitally important, as well, to prevent major impact to the bottom line.

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