A power cut at home is inconvenient, but power loss for a business can be extremely costly, even catastrophic. The most obvious loss from a power cut is the loss of productivity, but the reality goes far beyond this.
Relatively small dips or surges in power, like those that make your lights dim briefly when an appliance is turned on, can cause system crashes and data loss, or even damage to business critical IT infrastructure, resulting in high costs and increased downtime. So how can you avoid this? With an uninterruptible power supply.
What is a UPS, and how does it work?
There are two types of UPS, continuous and standby. Continuous UPS operates, as the name suggests, continuously, meaning whatever it is attached to is drawing constantly from it, and it is constantly charging, so if there is a power loss, there is no functional change for the system. Standby UPS, on the other hand, kicks in within a few milliseconds when a power loss is detected, protecting your business from inconvenience or potential costs of data loss. Continuous UPS systems also protect from power dips and spikes, ensuring a continuous current to your business critical systems, protecting them from potential damage far more effectively than standby UPS.
Do I need a battery backup system?
Whether or not your business needs a UPS will depend on how reliant you are on your IT systems, but for most businesses these days, the loss of computer systems, even for a few minutes, will be a substantial cost. Coupling that with rising incidents of power cuts in the UK, with 63% of businesses in the west midlands reporting power cuts in 2016, a UPS from an Eaton UPS distributor such as http://www.cppsales.com/Eaton_UPS_Systems___Accessories-catid17 can save quite a bit of money, or at least give peace of mind.
The other question will be what sort of system to buy? A standby UPS is relatively inexpensive if the goal is to prevent damage and data loss by safely shutting down systems, but obviously, price grows with battery capacity. For servers and critical infrastructure, however, a continuous UPS is likely worth the added cost, as having to replace an email or network server due to a power surge is potentially catastrophic for any business.
