“We don’t need that, we’re not a computer company” or similar comments I hear quite a lot when it comes to backup solutions, UPS or security. At B Squared we take these seriously. All our servers, hard disk arrays, network equipment and phone system all on UPSs. We make multiple backups of everything. We have multiple recovery solutions depending on the severity of the problem. In the event of a total power cut, our servers, network and phone system will remain running for around 20 minutes before commencing a normal shutdown.

I visit schools and talk to companies who say “it will never happen to us” or “it will be alright” and they never spend time or money planning for the what if moments. A power spike or power cut, a hard disk failure or some other component failure or even a virus can render your server useless. These can happen at any time and are out of your control, yet will stop your business or school dead in its tracks. You may not be an IT company, but most companies or schools rely on computers, it might be documents, communicating or specialist software. Take away the computers and what will happen? Can you still function?

It is only when companies or schools experience a failure do they look into preventing failures or how to recover from them. Buying a UPS for your server will protect it in the event of a power cut and buying an external drive and backing up your data can keep your data safe in the event of failure. This is the bare minimum you should do and every company or school should do. Hard disks are cheap so you don’t have to choose what to backup any more, you can and should backup everything and multiple times. You can keep your data safe, but you also need to think about how to get the server back up and running after a failure or how long it will take to replace it with a new server.

Spending time investigating this and implementing solutions can save time and money in the future. How much money would it cost your company if you lost all your documents, data and emails? By backing your data up on a regular basis, you may only lose access to them for a few days and by having a planned recovery solution, you may only lose access for an hour or so. It is the same in schools, teachers spend a lot of time creating planning documents, resources, write reports, record assessments and teachers also take photos and record evidence of pupils work. The data is invaluable, and if it is lost some of it would be lost forever and the resources, documents and assessment information would take weeks, months or even years to reproduce. Below is a an example of disaster planning for dealing with hard disk failure;

Its very simple to see that taking backups would save the business a lot of money compared to losing the hard disk and the time lost rebuilding the server and the network. Implementing RAID would prevent the failure from happening and there would be no cost to the business in terms of data or downtime.

Create a disaster recovery plan. List the different failures that may affect you, what is affected by the failure, the cost to the business, how it can be avoided, how to get up and running again and how long it will take to get back up and running. You can then decide which precautions you need to take to avoid failures, which you can afford and build your recovery solutions based on this information.

When most people here the word UPS, they think of the brown coloured delivery firm sporting over sized vans and outdated uniforms. In this instance, I am not talking delivery companies, I am talking Uninterruptible Power Supplys.

Alot of companies seem to overlook implementing a UPS as part of their standard server set up. Whether this is because it is not regarded as essential or the system can function fine without it or it is too expensive or maybe it has not even been thought of, a UPS is very much essential. You never buy one for yourself, you buy it for Justin (Justin Case ;)). The main job of a UPS ultimately is to provide power should there be a power cut. This power is not so systems can continue as normal, it is designed to give the network administrators time to shut the servers down to prevent catastrophic data loss.

When deciding whether or not you can afford a UPS or whether it is essential for your situation, the most important thing to factor in to the equation is "If we had a power cut tomorrow, how much data could I lose and how long would it take me to repair the server?". Also consider the effect a powercut will have on hardware RAID arrays. A sudden loss of power could effectively render all data across all the disks useless. What may also need to think how many people will be breathing down your neck whilst you are repairing the damage after the power cut let alone their reaction when you tell them you have lost their data.

I am sure by now the benefits are far out weighing the negatives. It is not just providing power that a UPS can do, they can also have many additional functions to further protect you precious and expensive server equipment. Many of the cheaper UPS devices provide emergency power but do not provide protection from power surges. Servers are very sensitive to fluctuations in current and cheaper UPS units can't handle the increase in voltage and have a tendency to stop functioning all the time the voltage is high. Furthermore they do not provide any surge protection to the servers. If you spend a little more, you can get integrated surge protection meaning you are fully protected from electrical faults in supply.

Another feature of the  more expensive UPS units is the ability to interface with the server directly either via network or via a serial connection. The main aim of this is for the UPS to report to the server when there has been a power failure and send a shut down signal that starts the server shut down sequence in a safe and timely manner. Other reporting features can include mailing to network administrators when a failure has occurred, if there is an issue with the device or if voltage is unusually high.

Whilst some of the UPS solutions can be expensive, it is an important part of any network setup. If you do not currently have a UPS connected to your server, ask yourself the question, "Is it worth risking all our information?".