Preventive maintenance is the act of performing regularly scheduled maintenance activities to help prevent unexpected failures in the future. Long story short, it's about fixing things before they break.

Routine maintenance can prevent a host of potential issues and assure that your UPS will be there to protect your equipment when it is needed the most. Be sure to test those units as soon as you’re able to verify they are performing as expected.

An uninterruptible power supply or uninterruptible power source (UPS) is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power source or mains power fails. A UPS differs from an auxiliary or emergency power system or standby generator in that it will provide near-instantaneous protection from input power interruptions, by supplying energy stored in batteries, supercapacitors, or flywheels.

The length of your service depends on the size of your UPS system. Maintenance processes on smaller UPS systems can take up to 1 hour, with larger units taking between 1-5 hours. Although not necessary, servicing and maintenance procedures can be conducted outside of working hours to minimize any potential disruption to the business.

UPS failure is a leading cause of unplanned power outages in data centers. One battery failure can lead to the failure of the entire set. Essentially, without the batteries, the UPS system cannot function.

A bonus tip has to do with the advent of the new Lithium-based batteries. If you are still using lead-acid based units, replace them with Lithium to help the environment, improve your sustainability and carbon footprint as well as receive higher uptimes, longer lasting battery life and a higher return on your investment. Learn more about our Lithium-based batteries here. Modern UPS systems and Lithium batteries are game changers for power protection in your data center or network closet.