Power outages and UPS

[uffy2000]

Hey y'all

 

so a little backgroup here. i have just a got a new position in a primary school and we have just had a power cut for 10 mintues, i am new so i have a look around and think, wait there are 2 UPS, 1 attatched to the Admin server and 1 attached to the curriculum server. Then i thought whats the point of having a UPS on both the servers if the switches and PCs/end points are off? the only thing i can think of is just that when the switches come back on they can re-connect to the DC's straight away and ensures that anything that was happening on the server is ok/can continue when its back up.

 

So my question, where would you have UPS on your network and why put them there?

 

Adam,

Uffy2000

[crc-ict]

The UPS's should be linked to the servers, which should be running special software which will enable to servers to automatically shutdown in the event of power failure - thus ensuring the servers shut down cleanly rather than just being shut off with the power cut.

 

UPSs aren't generally intended to keep systems up for any length of time, just to provide backup power for long enough to sustain a controlled shutdown.

[uffy2000]

I do have the software installed on the server which i installed a month ago (my predecessor had not installed it)

[Michael]

It's recommended to have a UPS attached to servers because potentially it can damage/corrupt data, damage RAID arrays and booting a server can typically take up to 10 minutes (depending on services installed). Switches of course are the go-between to workstations which are going to be off anyway.

 

UPSes also protect against surges. I'm sure you'd agree it's better to kill a UPS in the process rather than the server itself. Typically only in mission critical situations would you have core switches also plugged into a UPS.

[Abaddon]

Here, the entire server room is on a UPS (not individual servers - a full room solution) - this means the core switches are also protected. Also, the switch in the Bursary, and all admin machines have individual UPS's installed - as does the switchboard. This gives the admin team sufficent time to sort out anything they may need to during an outage. Generally, we can last through up to 30 minutes in the Bursary area.