The amount of data generated by businesses and consumers every day is rising exponentially around the world, putting an extra strain on data centers’ performance. At the same time, this data is becoming increasingly mission critical to business success, making data center uptime imperative — businesses simply cannot afford unplanned downtime. As a result, protecting the availability and reliability of the network has never been more critical, and a reliable power distribution method is increasingly necessary for ensuring data center availability.
While uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) provide adequate power during short-term interruptions and ‘ride-through” time (before the system converts to a backup supply such as a generator) power issues should also be addressed at the source of energy distribution — between the utility and the UPS. To address this, data center and facility managers would be wise to consider additional and alternative solutions that enhance overall reliability of the data center’s electrical system, thus ensuring availability.