How do power outages impact data centres?

Power outages pose significant challenges to data centres, primarily because they disrupt the continuous operation crucial for maintaining reliability and service availability. When power is lost, several detrimental effects can occur.

Firstly, service interruption occurs as servers and other critical infrastructure lose power. This immediate shutdown can lead to downtime, affecting clients and users who rely on the data centre for processing and storage.

Secondly, data loss can result from improper shutdowns during power outages. If changes or transactions are being processed at the time of the outage, there is a risk that these updates may not be saved, leading to corrupted files or missing data.

Lastly, equipment can sustain physical damage during power outages. Many modern data centres are equipped with uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), but if power is lost suddenly, it can cause hard drives, solid-state drives, and other components to be compromised—especially if they halt abruptly during operations.

Understanding these effects is critical for data centre management, as minimizing downtime and protecting both data integrity and hardware are paramount priorities.