Maintaining Mission Critical Systems in a 24/7 Environment

Book excerpt: The latest tested and proven strategies to maintain business resiliency and sustainability for our ever-growing global digital economy Here is a comprehensive study of the fundamentals of mission critical systems, which are designed to maintain ultra-high reliability, availability, and resiliency of electrical, mechanical, and digital systems and eliminate costly downtime. Readers learn all the skills needed to design, fine tune, operate, and maintain mission critical equipment and systems. Practical in focus, the text helps readers configure and customize their designs to correspond to their organizations' unique needs and risk tolerance. Specific strategies are provided to deal with a wide range of contingencies from power failures to human error to fire. In addition, the author highlights measures that are mandated by policy and regulation. The author of this text has worked in mission critical facilities engineering for more than twenty years, serving clients in banking, defense, utilities, energy, and education environments. His recommendations for maintaining essential operations are based on firsthand experience of what works and what does not. Most chapters in this text concentrate on an individual component of the mission critical system, including standby generators, automatic transfer switches, uninterruptible power supplies, and fuel, fire, and battery systems. For each component, the author sets forth applications, available models, design choices, standard operating procedures, emergency action plans, maintenance procedures, and applicable codes and standards. Extensive use of photographs and diagrams illustrates how individual components and integrated systems work. With the rapid growth of e-commerce and 24/7 business operations, mission critical systems have moved to the forefront of concerns among both private and public operations. Facilities engineers, senior administrators, and business continuity professionals involved in information technology and data center design should consult this text regularly to ensure they have done everything they can to protect and sustain their operations to reduce human error, equipment failures, and other critical events. Adapted from material the author has used in academic and professional training programs, this guide is also an ideal desktop reference and textbook.