BS 25999 – Will it lock down Power Continuity?
Last week I read with interest that more than half (60%) of UK companies are considering certification on the new British Standard for business continuity – BS 25999, according to a survey by Business Continuity Expo 2008.
It would seem that UK plc is waking up the fact that downtime, of any description, is no longer excusable - particularly on the world stage where the nearest competitor in many business sectors is merely a click away.
I wonder, however, how much emphasis is being placed on certification rather than development of true business continuity practices and implementation of continuity solutions, like power continuity? Without electricity these days there is no business continuity.
I am all for the British Standards and think it is a good thing that so many organizations are planning to take BS 25999 seriously. My concern is that they do not adopt a ‘shortcut to compliance’ attitude as I fear so many of their competitors will. Anyway, in terms of power continuity, here are a few tips:
- Obtain a true measurement of your energy use and power capacity. This will highlight areas where you can implement energy efficiency measures whilst enabling you to size power protection equipment such as UPS and generators.
- Identify systems that can be affected by power problems and categorise them into critical, essential and non-essential loads.
- Assess typical power quality problems in your area: sags, brownouts, surges, electrical interference, harmonics, blackouts and possible applicable solutions.
- Consider UPS power protection and emergency back-up power generation (diesel generator, flywheel). Build in maximum levels of reliability and resilience.
- Develop monitoring and maintenance plans. Consider remote monitoring of UPS by a reputable provider like Riello UPS as an option. Build in a test schedule whereby equipment can be tested under load conditions to ensure it is working.
For more information on power protection see The Power Protection Guide.
