Storms are a scary phenomenon, especially when you’re talking about a hurricane or other major tropical storm. On top of protecting your home and personal safety, you also need to think about your professional equipment, particularly if you have a lot of electronics and secure data at your place of work. Your IT department can take measures to protect data, but your entire company should have measures for protecting equipment and keeping the power on as long as possible. Getting your business ready for the next storm can save you money and stress later on.
Have an Available Power Supply
A backup generator or power supply is good for keeping the lights on when your regular power supply fails, but there will still be a temporary interruption of power. This short space between when the input power shuts off and the generator kicks in can mean the loss of critical data or a server problem. You should have an uninterrupted power supply, which will kick in immediately when the electricity fails in a storm. The uninterrupted supply can apply to your network server alone, or a much bigger network of machines. This system will keep your machines up and running as long as they are not under water.
Back Up Your Data
You should always back up your data to a server that is not at the same location as the rest of your equipment. Whether it’s a cloud service, or a physical server that is in a second location, this back up will ensure that you don’t lose all secure data if your computers and server are damaged beyond repair. When the only copy of your data gets water logged, you may be without a network server or Internet connection for a considerable period of time after the storm passes. A loss of data due to water damage is almost certainly permanent, so you should take measures now to protect yourself.
Protect Against Water Damage
Even if your data is backed up, seismic racks and other protective devices should be used to protect your actual computers from water damage. Whether you place your servers and hard drives up high to avoid flood damage, or at least protect them with a plastic sheet to avoid some of the water damage. Seismic racks help your servers if they are suddenly jolted from an earthquake or because the building is shifting. Providing physical protection against the elements will help keep any permanent damage that may compromise your equipment or the information it contains.
Protecting your business from a big storm is important for maintaining your data and keeping your network up and running. Each of your employees should know how to keep their equipment protected against water damage, such as moving hard drives to higher ground. Placing your major hard drives out of harm’s way doesn’t have to cost a lot of money, and it will save you from a massive headache once you are ready to go back to business as usual.
Andrew King is a hardware salesman. He loves to help people get the hardware they need by writing on IT blogs.