Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Smart Meters and Servers

You maybe have received a letter from Nevada Energy informing you that they will be installing a Smart Meter on your premise soon.

During the install of your new Smart Meter, NV Energy will cut your buildings power for up to 15 minutes.

There may be a major problem with a 15 Minute interruption in power.

Most battery backup systems are installed with the intention of surviving a brief (less then 5 Minute) power outage that is typical of weather related phenomena.
Many battery backup systems will not hold your computer system up for the 15 minutes required.

Letting your system go down unexpectedly can mean lost productivity, data corruption, or a major outage costing your business hundreds or thousands of dollars in downtime and repair expenses.

Being prepared is as simple as knowing systems passwords, and how to properly shutdown your business computer systems, and then how to properly turn your network back on. If you have any questions about shutting your systems down please don't hesitate to contact our dispatch team:

(dispatch@sierracomputergroup.com or 322-6455)

If Nevada Energy should show up at your Office and request to install the power meter. Ask them for 20 minutes so that you can properly shutdown your business computer systems.

A General guideline for shutting your systems down is listed below:

1. First, have all users save all data and shutdown their workstations normally. Have users turn off their battery backup systems; this will avoid the incessant beeping generated by these units when they lose power.

2. Next, shutdown your server(s)

3. Finally, turn off printers, scanners and copiers, networking equipment (routers, switches, etc.) and any battery backup units hooked up to your server(s) and networking equipment.

When NV Energy says they are done, power up in the reverse order, waiting at least 2-3 minutes between steps.

1. Start with turning on printers, networking equipment (routers, switches, etc.) and any battery backup units hooked up to your server(s) and networking equipment.

2. Next power on your server.

3. Making sure to wait 2-3 minutes and have users begin by turning their battery backup units on (if so equipped) and finally turn their computers back on.

This procedure may save you time and money.

Let us know if we can help.