Today we kick off the first Markley Group How-To Video on our blog. Our hope with these videos is to help IT professionals by covering best industry practices of some data center operational procedures. For our inaugural video we decided to tackle one of the more critical operational procedures that pose risk to IT Clients: a UPS transfer.
As many of you know, UPS, or Uninterruptible Power Supply, is an electrical apparatus that provides conditioned power to a load. When the input power source, typically utility power fails, a UPS differs from emergency power systems or standby generators as it provides near-instantaneous protection from input power interruptions, supplying stored energy instead. Typically used to protect data centers and equipment where an unexpected power disruption could cause serious business problems, and data loss, so a transfer must be treated with care.
A UPS transfer in a critical data center requires technicians to move the IT load from utility power to generator power and back again without its critical loads seeing any interruption. If not performed correctly, a UPS transfer can be very dangerous for the data stored on the servers. There is also an inherent risk to personnel whenever performing power switching. Since technicians will be moving the IT load the risk for a loss of information is increased. However, by following industry best practices operations personnel can ensure that maintenance is performed and systems will be restored to their normal configuration without an interruption of service.
Above is a link to a video produced right here at One Summer Street illustrating an example of how to perform a UPS transfer. Routinely this type of procedure is performed by Markley Group technicians to allow them to safely work on critical electrical equipment without any risk to the systems or themselves.
From the initial safety meeting to the exact steps taken to electrically isolate the UPS so maintenance can be performed, the video highlights steps taken by Markley Group technicians to ensure successful UPS transfers. Planning and error free execution is essential to performing work on critical systems within a data center infrastructure.
We hope this video will help you understand a UPS transfer maintenance request, and as always, feel free to leave comments or questions below.
Do you have any suggestions for the next Markley How-To Video?
