As a company headquartered in Florida, we are familiar with preparing ourselves and our homes for hurricanes but is your business and specifically your IT equipment protected from possible weather threats? It only takes damage from one major storm to take down your entire network.
Power outages and surges can cause issues for your IT equipment. To protect your equipment your routers, switches, firewalls, servers, and storage devices should be run through a redundant power supply.
A redundant power supply is when a single piece of network gear has two physical power supplies. You get the most benefits from the redundant power configuration when each power supply is powered but a separate power circuit. For even more power redundancy, the power supplies should be connected to an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). This will cover both a power outage and a hardware failure with one of the power supplies.
This approach works with either on-premise equipment or equipment co-located in a data center. Most data centers offer redundant power to the cabinets where your equipment is housed. Data centers will have a battery backup system for short-term power outages to ensure your data keeps flowing.
But what about if you are directly affected by a powerful hurricane and experience a longer power outage? This is when your generator will kick in, run by diesel fuel. The generator will allow your data to stay intact and readily available as if you were running normally.
There are many solutions and ways to connect your redundant power, but it is highly recommended to deploy this across your entire infrastructure. There are some devices such as access layer switches that will not have the option to add a second power supply in the chassis however, there are options for these devices. Most vendors have an external redundant power supply that can have several access layer switches with POE connected and ready to act as the switches power should the power supply fail.
Your business doesn’t need to go down as the result of a major storm. Trifecta Networks is committed to partnering with our customers to prepare and protect their business from weather-related, cyber and other disasters.
Need help getting started? Contact us today.