Kens Korner

UPS Battery Maintenance Tips The weak link in a standby battery based emergency backup system is the battery.  Storage battery failures cause more down time and service calls on UPS systems than any other component.  Buying the best battery for your intended use is the first step to success, regular monitoring and preventative maintenance is the next step in making...

Selecting UPS System Batteries (UPS Battery Basics) According to Ponemon Institute’s September 2010 National Survey on Data Center Outages, 95% of the companies surveyed had experienced unplanned outages in the prior two years, with 88% citing the loss of primary power as the culprit and experiencing an average downtime event lasting 107 minutes per outage.  The survey also indicated the...

Rating Generators - To avoid Generator Failure A recent study as reported by Steve Fairfax, President of MTechnology, at the 7x24 Exchange Fall Conference in Phoenix, on the failure rates in data center components and systems found generators played a role in between 45 and 65 percent of outages in data centers with an N+1 configuration (data centers with a...

Load Shedding to Reduce Your Electric Utility Bill What happens when you combine regular backup generator preventative maintenance and load testing with load shedding? A significant savings on your electric utility bill!  This was the practice I followed at our data centers.  By participating in load shedding with our local electrical service provider I was able to save over 40...

Back-up Diesel Generators and Stored Fuel The importance of diesel generators is well known by the facilities and IT personnel of a data center, especially in the event of a power failure. Due to this fact, much emphasis and resources are put into the generator's physical maintenance, but - much too often a very important factor is neglected, the on-site...

Generator Noise Abatement Since generator noise levels can reach 100 decibel’s (dB) or more, compliance with national, state or local ordinances can dictate when and where generators are used if noise abatement measures are not implemented.  Our city codes allowed a maximum decibel reading at our property line of 55 or less after 10:00 pm, causing us to implement a...

Being prepared for Power Outages…Diesel Generator Maintenance Power outages occur; they are practically unavoidable, that’s why diesel generator backups are such an important part of the data center industry.  My data centers didn’t need our backup generators very often, but when we did, it was critical that they be ready to go at a moment’s notice.  Knowing whether or not...