Are your computers ready?

It’s Storm Season! Are Your Computers Ready?

Storm season is coming.  Now you’ve probably already heard stories of someone who’s had a minor or catastrophic issue with their computers right after a weather storm or power fluctuation.  Or you may have had this happen to your computers in your home or office.  Power protection is vital and essential for your computer and networking environment.  This is true in home applications, home offices and “especially” business environments.

There are broad ranges of power and surge protection equipment along with other equipment available for different types and sizes of computer and network scenarios.  While we at Rockingham I.T. Solutions can help you properly specify and fulfill your power protection needs, for now we will go over useful pointers regarding how to properly using existing or new power protection equipment and/or avoid possible damage of your equipment in the event of a storm or power fluctuation.

• Use a proper UPS/Surge Protector: We spend thousands on our computers looking after our business data and want them running all the time. Investing in uninterruptable power supplies or surge protects is a smart move.
• Properly Protect Telecommunications Links: For most of the world, the days of dial-up Internet technology have long passed, however telephone connections (RJ-11 standard) are still widely used on computers, printers and fax machines for many applications.  Unlike a network cable (RJ-45) telephone lines are prime culprits for electrical damage.  They serve as the perfect host for allowing an entryway for electrical interference.  Be sure that your surge protection has the proper options and configuration for isolated protection of incoming telephone or fax connections.
• Maintain Proper Insurance:  While having proper surge protection is essential there is still “always” the slight possibility of electrical damage to your valuable equipment.  When all else fails in most cases the proper insurance can provide you with compensation for your equipment losses to get you back up and running and even possibly provide compensation for any IT related services you may need to get back up and running.
• Insurance against Backups: External hard drives are the best defence and we recommend the ioSafe range coupled with Windows 7 as it has its own dedicated backup software (backs-up once a week) this is the minimum option you should be maintaining for your software / data.

If you are in need of some better power and surge protection equipment at your office or home and just have general questions or need a more in-depth assessment to find out what suites your needs and budget, contact us.  We will match you up with the right solution so you can sleep easy during the weather storm.