Data centres primarily serve to provide as much uptime as possible to an organisation’s IT operations and equipment. This is achieved in a matter of ways, such as maintaining optimal temperatures, using redundant communications circuits, and always providing stable power. However, providing stable power can prove difficult, given that commercial power companies can never guarantee 100% uptime for their services. This is where an uninterruptible power supply can help keep data centres running regardless of outages.

An overview of uninterruptible power supplies

As its name implies, an uninterruptible power supply, or UPS for short, is a power distribution unit designed to guarantee continuous power delivery to essential equipment when the commercial power source is unavailable. They come in many different designs, with the following being the most common ones:

Individual UPS

This UPS is a single unit with a bank of batteries capable of powering only one or a few pieces of equipment in case of power outages. These backup batteries can provide power for several minutes or a few hours, depending on a couple of key factors like the UPS’s battery capacity and the number of devices drawing power from it.

High-performance

High-performance models are bigger UPS systems that generally have six to twelve outlets — meaning they can power more units! They function similarly to an individual UPS, albeit with increased battery sizes that can keep equipment running for longer.

Full data centre

Advanced data centres usually employ a centralised bank of batteries capable of powering the whole facility. They can typically provide up to 30 minutes of uninterrupted power, which is enough time to get the backup generators running yo maintain the necessary power.

Other uses of a UPS system

As we have established, an uninterruptible power supply is used to power computer equipment and ensure continuous operation even when the commercial power source goes offline. Some may only need it to power essential equipment, while others require them to power entire facilities.

However, a UPS can serve another purpose. For instance, it is commonplace for large-scale data centres to leverage on their UPS when doing maintenance work on their electrical systems. They can manually switch to run on the UPS system so that they can perform their work without sacrificing uptime and workers are safe from unnecessary risks.

A couple more benefits of UPS systems

An uninterruptible power supply offers a few more benefits besides the main one mentioned above, such as:

Preventing power surges

Good UPS systems typically have the commercial power source run through them to intercept potential power surges that could damage sensitive equipment if left unchecked.

Delivering even electricity

Electricity does not always flow through the outlet at a perfectly consistent rate. While small fluctuations will not disrupt the equipment, they can lead to damage over time. Having the commercial power run through the UPS can even out distribution to prevent this from happening.

Conclusion

With many of today’s companies now heavily reliant on their computing equipment to conduct operations, business owners should prioritise the uptime of their smart data centres and ensure interruptions do not occur. An uninterruptible power supply serves as one of the main tools that can make this happen and is something that one should definitely consider investing in regardless of the scale of your current data centre.

Here at Bentec Digital Solutions, we offer various power management solutions such as uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), automatic transfer switches (ATS) and power distribution units (PDUs) in Singapore to help you ensure an uninterrupted data centre power supply. Get in touch with us today and our dedicated team would be more than happy to lend a hand should you have any queries.