Protecting Your Investment!

By: Ron Carter, Network Consultant

Computers today are the very core of most small and large businesses. And just like a business, computers are an investment. Computers basically hold all the data of your business so it’s wise to protect your computer from the damage caused by spikes, black outs, brown outs and lighting strikes.

It’s been said that there are two types of computer users: those who have lost data because of a power problem, and those who are going to.

Over the years we’ve helped create a new class...those who have recognized the need for protection and have take proactive steps to ensure that they’re prepared for the inevitable.

It’s important to understand the difference between a power strip and a surge protector. A power strip a device to give you additional outlets. A surge protector, is a special type of power strip that protects your equipment from electrical surges. Most surges protectors come with a manufacture’s product warranty to cover your equipment losses if the surge protector doesn’t function as specified.

Power outlets are not the only thing that can get electrical surges. Another device on the computer that can be damaged is the modem. If the modem is not protected and a storm sends an electrical charge through the telephone line, the modem can be damaged beyond repair. For this reason, many surge protectors now have telephone protection. Surge protectors are good for home users and non-essential workstations, but what about mission critical workstations, data servers, backup servers and file servers, or any system that is important to the business to keep running? UPS’s (un-interruptible power supplies) are a combination of a surge protector and battery backup. There are many types of UPS’s that are designed for different system configurations and purposes. The basic UPS’s are designed to just give you enough time to close your programs and shut down your system to prevent it from crashing. The more expensive models provide addition protection, automatic shutdown utilities (that can keep your critical system up until the power failure or black out is over.) Depending on your business model, the way your systems are configured will determine what you need protected and what degree of protection is required. But whether you just need surge protectors or the high end UPS’s, make sure your investment is protected. Give us a call; we will be glad to evaluate your needs and provide you with right sizing requirements. CNI is a Certified APC Reliability Provider and has the correct tools to spec your organization.

You can go to www.apcc.com/sizing to use APC’s automated sizing tool.

*Events*	*Definition*	*Results*
SAGS	Also known as brownouts, sags are short term decreases in voltage levels. This is the most common power problem.	A sag can “starve” a computer of the power it needs to function, causing frozen keyboards & unexpected system crashes with the end result being the loss or corruption of data
BLACKOUT	Loss of power caused by excessive demand on the power grid, lightning storms, ice on power lines, car accidents, backhoes, earthquakes, power rationing, etc.	Loss of current work or cache, possible loss of hard drive File Allocation Table (FAT) resulting in a total loss of data stored on drive.
SPIKE	A spike is an instantaneous , dramatic increase in voltage.	Catastrophic damage to hardware. Loss of data.
SURGE	A short term increase in voltage, typically lasting at least 1/120 of a second	Anything outside of expected peak & RMS voltage levels will stress delicate components and cause premature failure.
NOISE	Electrical noise disrupts the smooth sine wave one expects from utility power.	Noise introduces glitches and errors into executable programs and data files.

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