Just as devastating as a direct lightning strike is a massive power failure. On
August 14, 2003, someone working at a major power plant made a slight mistake while
configuring something. The result was the now infamous Northeast Blackout of 2003
in which the upper East Coast of the United States and eastern Canada lost power. For
databases housed in data centers with their own backup power supplies, this incident
may not have caused a massive panic attack for the DBAs. In smaller organizations
without a dedicated backup power generator, let??™s just say that sedatives were probably
needed for those DBAs.
CHAPTER 10 n HARDWARE CONSIDERATIONS 264
UPS
A UPS is actually very poorly named. The goal of a UPS is not to act as a backup power
generator for prolonged activity without main power. Instead, its goal is to supply enough
power to a server long enough to shut it down in a safe and controlled manner. Many
UPS vendors supply software utilities that automate this process. If power is in question,
the answer ???we have a UPS on the server??? is not an appropriate response to the question
???are we prepared if we lose power to the SQL Server????
Heat
Temperature is secondary to, but tightly coupled with, hardware.
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