ABSTRACT
This chapter explores issues applicable to the smallest installation, and is designed to help those with growing server farms. Most network designers recognize the need for power protection early. They know that even if the power from their local utility company is 99.98% reliable like the utility company claims, the power will be out on average for 105 minutes a year. There are three types of devices commonly sold in the server market as an uninterruptible power supply. The simplest is a backup power supply. Most users specify a uninterruptible power supply to provide roughly 15 minutes of backup power to allow a server to perform an orderly shutdown. While today’s servers, even UNIX-based midrange servers, are much less picky about temperature and humidity than the water-cooled mainframes of the 1950s and 1960s, they do need somewhat more care than the average office environment provides.
