Protecting the Power Supply

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The single biggest failure point for any network is its power supply. If you don't have power, you can't run your computers. Seems pretty obvious, and most of us slap an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) on the order when we're buying a new server or at least make sure that the current UPS can handle the extra load. However, this barely scratches the surface of what you can do to protect your network from power problems. You need to protect your network from four basic types of power problems:

• Local power supply failure Failure of the internal power supply on a server, router, or other network component
• Voltage variations Spikes, surges, sags, and longer-term brownouts
• Short-term power outages External power failures lasting from fractions of a second to several minutes
• Long-term power outages External power failures lasting from several minutes to several hours or even days

Each type of power problem poses somewhat different risks to your network and will likely require somewhat different protection mechanisms. The possible threat that each one poses to your environment varies depending on the area in which you live, the quality of power available to you, and the potential loss to your business if your computers are down.

Local Power Supply Failure

The weakest links in all networks are the mechanical moving parts, and the mechanical moving parts most likely to fail are the internal power supplies on the servers and network components. All the power conditioning, uninterruptible power supplies, and external generators in the world won't help much if your server's power supply fails. Most higher end servers these days either have a redundant power supply or have the option of including one. Take the option! The extra cost associated with adding a redundant power supply to a server or critical piece of network hardware is usually far less than the cost of downtime should the power supply fail.

If your server or another piece of network hardware doesn't have the option of a redundant power supply, order a spare power supply for it when you order the original hardware. Keep all of your spares in a central, well-known, and identified location, and clearly label the machine or machines the power supply is for.

Finally, practice replacing the power supplies of your critical hardware. Include clear, well-illustrated, detailed instructions on how to replace the power supplies of your critical hardware as part of your disaster recovery standard operating procedures. If you can change the power supply in a very short time, the cost of having it fail diminishes significantly. If you have to wait for your original equipment supplier to get a replacement to you, even if you're on a four-hour response service contract, the cost can be a lot higher than the cost of keeping a spare around.

Voltage Variations

Even in areas with exceptionally clean power that is always available, the power that is supplied to your network will inevitably fluctuate. Minor, short-term variations merely stress your electronic components, but major variations can literally fry them. You should never, ever simply plug your computer into an ordinary wall socket without providing some sort of protection against voltage variations. The following sections describe the types of variations and the best way to protect yourself from them.

Spikes

Spikes are large but short-lived increases in voltage. They can occur because of external factors, such as lightning striking a power line, or because of internal factors, such as a large motor starting. The most common causes of severe voltage spikes, however, are external and outside your control. And the effects can be devastating. A nearby lightning strike can easily cause a spike of 1000 volts or more to be sent into equipment designed to run on 110 to 120 volts. Few, if any, electronic components are designed to withstand large voltage spikes of several thousand volts, and almost all will suffer damage if they're not protected from them.

Protection from spikes comes in many forms, from the $19.95 power strip with built-in surge protection that you can buy at your local hardware store to complicated arrays of transformers and specialized sacrificial transistors that are designed to die so that others may live. Unfortunately, those $19.95 power strips just aren't good enough. They are better than nothing, but barely. They have a limited ability to withstand really large spikes.

More specialized (and more expensive, of course) surge protectors that are specifically designed to protect computer networks are available from various companies. They differ in their ability to protect against really large spikes and in their cost. There's a fairly direct correlation between the cost of these products and their rated capacity and speed of action within any company's range of products, but the cost for a given level of protection can differ significantly from company to company. As always, if the price sounds too good to be true, it is.

In general, these surge protectors are designed to work by sensing a large increase in voltage and creating an electrical path for that excessive voltage that doesn't allow it to get through to your server. In the most severe spikes, the surge protectors should destroy themselves before allowing the voltage to get through to your server. The effectiveness of these stand-alone surge protectors depends on the speed of response to a large voltage increase and the mechanism of failure when their capacity is exceeded.

Many of the newer UPSs also provide protection from spikes. They have built-in surge protectors, plus isolation circuitry that tends to buffer the effects of spikes. The effectiveness of the spike protection in a UPS is not directly related to its cost, however—the overall cost of the UPS is more a factor of its effectiveness as an alternative power source. Your responsibility is to read the fine print and understand the limitations of the surge protection a given UPS offers. Also remember that just as with simple surge protectors, large voltage spikes can cause the surge protection to self-destruct rather than allow the voltage through to your server. That's the good news; the bad news is that instead of having to replace just a surge protector, you're likely to have to repair or replace the UPS.

Finally, one other spike protection mechanism can be helpful—the constant voltage transformer. You're not likely to see one unless you're in a large industrial setting, but they are often considered to be a sufficient replacement for other forms of surge protection. Unfortunately, they're not really optimal for surge protection. They will filter some excess voltage, but a large spike is likely to find its way through. However, in combination with either a fully protected UPS or a good stand-alone surge protector, a constant voltage transformer can be quite effective. And they provide additional protection against other forms of voltage variation that surge protectors alone can't begin to manage.

Surges

Voltage surges and voltage spikes are often discussed interchangeably, but we'd like to make a distinction here. For our purposes, a surge lasts longer than most spikes and isn't nearly as large. Most surges last a few hundred milliseconds and are rarely over 1000 volts. They can be caused by many of the same factors that cause voltage spikes.

Providing protection against surges is somewhat easier than protecting against large spikes. Most of the protection mechanisms just discussed will also adequately handle surges. In addition, most constant voltage transformers are sufficient to handle surges and may even handle them better if the surge is so prolonged that it might threaten to overheat and burn out a simple surge protector.

Sags

Voltage sags are short-term reductions in the voltage delivered. They aren't complete voltage failures or power outages and are shorter than a full-scale brownout. Voltage sags can drop the voltage well below 100 volts on a 110- to 120-volt normal line and will cause most servers to reboot if protection isn't provided.

Stand-alone surge protectors provide no defense against sags. You need a UPS or a very good constant voltage transformer to prevent damage from a voltage sag. Severe sags can overcome the rating of all but the best constant voltage transformers, so you generally shouldn't use constant voltage transformers as the sole protection against sags. A UPS, with its battery power supply, is an essential part of your protection from problems caused by voltage sag.

Brownouts

A brownout is a planned, deliberate reduction in voltage from your electric utility company. Brownouts most often occur in the heat of the summer and are designed to protect the utility company from overloading. They are not designed to protect the consumer, however.

In general, a brownout will reduce the available voltage by 5 to 20 percent from the normal value. A constant voltage transformer or a UPS provides excellent protection against brownouts, within limits. Prolonged brownouts may exceed your UPS's ability to maintain a charge at the same time that it is providing power at the correct voltage to your equipment. Monitor the health of your UPS carefully during a brownout, especially because the risk of a complete power outage will increase if the power company's voltage reduction strategy proves insufficient.

The best protection against extended brownouts is a constant voltage transformer of sufficient rating to fully support your critical network devices and servers. This transformer will take the reduced voltage provided by your power company and increase it to the rated output voltage. A good constant voltage transformer can handle most brownouts for an extended time without problems, but you should still supplement the constant voltage transformer with quality UPS and surge protection between the transformer and the server or network device. This extra protection is especially important while the power company is attempting to restore power to full voltage because during this period you run a higher risk of experiencing power and voltage fluctuations.

Short-Term Power Outages

Short-term power outages are those that last from a few milliseconds to a few minutes. They can be caused by either internal or external events, but you can rarely plan for them even if they are internal. A server unprotected from a short-term power outage will, at the minimum, reboot or, at the worst, fail catastrophically.

You can best protect against a short-term power outage by using a UPS in combination with high-quality spike protection. Be aware that many momentary interruptions of power are accompanied by large spikes when the power is restored. Further, a series of short-term power outages often occur consecutively, causing additional stress to electronic components.

Long-Term Power Outages

Long-term power outages, from an hour or so to several days, are usually accompanied by other, even more serious problems. Long-term power outages can be caused by storms, earthquakes, fires, and the incompetence of electric power utilities, among other causes. As such, long-term power outages should be part of an overall disaster recovery plan. (See Chapter 33 for more on disaster planning.)

Protection against long-term power outages really becomes a decision about how long you will want or need to function if all power is out. If you need to function long enough to be able to gracefully shut down your network, a simple UPS or a collection of them will be sufficient, assuming that you've sized the UPS correctly. However, if you need to be sure that you can maintain the full functionality of your Windows 2000 network during an extended power outage, you're going to need a combination of one or more UPSs and an auxiliary generator.

If your situation requires an auxiliary generator to supplement your UPSs, you should carefully plan your power strategy to ensure that you provide power to all of the equipment that the network will require in the event of a long-term power outage. You should regularly test the effectiveness of your disaster recovery plans and make sure that all key personnel know how to start the auxiliary generator manually in the event it doesn't start automatically. Finally, you should have a regular preventive maintenance program in place that tests the generator and ensures that it is ready and functioning when you need it.