People Come First

Before data, before communications, before power… people are the first responsibility of preparedness. I recommend to every business, from the smallest to the enterprise, emergency plans should first focus on the people involved. Every business should have plans for fire evacuation, severe weather sheltering and workplace violence, at the very minimum.

Planning for Power

You’re at your computer, hard at work on a spreadsheet or deeply engrossed in web-based research with a dozen websites open in tabs. Suddenly – the power goes out! Does your computer shut down instantly, leaving you wondering about that document or how you will find those sites again? If you have a laptop with a battery, chances are your battery will have enough charge to stay afloat. But if you’re like thousands of small businesses, your computer is a tower, and its source of power is the electrical outlet on the wall. Or maybe you have a surge protector – that’s a good thing, but doesn’t help you in an outage. Yes, we’re discussing battery back ups and alternative power.

By now, many businesses are already using battery back ups as an alternative to having the computer instantly shut down in an outage. The back up is designed to give a few minutes of power to allow the computer user time to save and close whatever work is in process and shut down the computer safely. This is a good tool for assisting in protecting data.

The battery back up provides other services as well. What most people don’t know is that building power can fluctuate. Those little spikes, surges, sags and brownouts can wreak havoc on the sensitive inner workings of your computer. While they might not cause sudden devastation, they can shorten the life of power supplies and system boards, causing costly repairs or early computer replacements. Running a computer on a battery back up can reduce the stress caused by power fluctuations. Because of this, even laptops benefit from the use of an external battery back up.

If your small business has servers, they should be running on server-level battery back ups. Not only do these provide more power in times of outage, but generally they can be installed with software that will properly shut down the server after a set amount of battery is used up. This way, the server will be shut down automatically without data loss.

What can be done in times of extended outage? This requires some advance planning. It is up to the business owner to decide how long the business can be “offline” before a financial hardship is incurred. If the outage is in one location and the business has multiple locations, it might be possible to utilize those other locations. If the financial hardship would be considerable, it might be wise to look into datacenter power generation. The cost of owning and maintaining a generator needs to be weighed against the possible loss and the probability of extended outages.

Power alternatives are an integral part of the data portion of any business continuity plan.