Monday, May 2, 2011

System Crash

I didn't realize until yesterday evening that I completely forgot to post. I was absorbed all day yesterday dealing with the aftermath of our reservation system crashing on Saturday.

Those who grew up in an era when power outages were more common probably know this, but one of the side effects of regular power outages is the potential destruction of electronics from the surge that accompanies the outage. My electronic alarm clock, for example, which kept perfect time for 10 years, has become undone by the frequent outages. It now gains as much as five minutes in a day, unable to keep good time as the mechanism has been fried by power surges.

Most companies, therefore, have all their more delicate electronics plugged into surge protectors; many of them have their computers plugged into a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) which also offers surge protection. Such is the case with the computers at my work. Unfortunately, the UPS we had the server for our reservation system plugged into had a completely drained battery, and so was no longer offering a power supply OR surge protection when we had a power outage on Saturday afternoon.

So if you plan on having a business or rely on any sort of computer system in the BVI, it is highly recommended that you not only use a UPS, but that you give it regular maintenance, and replace the battery when the UPS informs you that the battery is low. In this way, you can hopefully avoid systems crashes resulting from power outages.

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