Blackout - Possible reasons for long lasting power outages and how to protect your IT from data loss

in #blackout7 years ago

One speaks of a blackout in case of a large area (nationwide) power outage.


Image Source: pixabay

Reasons for a long lasting power outages

There are several reasons for a longer power outage. Regarding to the older but still up-to-date research of the CRO Forum, the main reason for local outages are mainly caused by external influences on the power grid:

  • Storm, Snow
  • Earthquake
  • Floods
  • Heat waves
  • Construction or maintenance

The complete document from November 2011 can be found here:
CRO Forum - Power Blackout Risks - Position Paper

Mostly the combination of several events leads to a typical blackout.

Requirements for a blackout

Requirements are

  • High network utilization
  • High power plant discharge or inadequacy due to material aging

Trigger a blackout

The additional occurrence of an event increases the probability of a blackout enormously.

Internal factors

  • Shutdown of a power plant due to unexpected problems
  • Short time overloads
  • Human errors during maintenance or switching operations

External factors

  • natural disasters
  • Terrorist and militarily motivated attacks (bombing, cyber attack) on power plants

Factor of economy

Electricity networks are directly affected by the changes of privatization and liberalization. A result is the separation of the power generation and the transport of the electricity. From an economic point of view, this leads to decreasing investments and reduced maintenance of the infrastructure.

Factor of energy revolution (exit from nuclear and fossil-fuel energy)

The growth of renewable energy also favors the increasing instability of the grid, since the amount of supplied electricity is not constant and can not be calculated well in advance.

These factors can cause the sensitive balance in the power grid to tip over.

Potential causes of blackouts

Image Source: CRO Forum - Power Blackout Risks - Position Paper

Data loss prevention during extended power outages

The use of an universal power supply (UPS) is not sufficient in this case. The additional use of a power management software is demanded!

OPMONis helps

OPMONis monitors your UPS and automates a clean shutdown of your virtualized systems in time (VMware ESXi, HyperV and XenServer) during extended power outages.

OPMONis works independently of the UPS manufacturer and thus works together with all common models of the manufacturers.

When the power is gone, OPMONis is there

Simply test OPMONis for 30 days for free. No registration required!
==> OPMONis Trial

OPMONi's installation

Further information can be found on the Homepage and in the Forum.

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