Preventive Maintenance vs. Murphy's Law update from December 2006

When data centers experience lengthy downtime, it's usually because a piece of equipment has failed unexpectedly. Stuff happens, even in an environment designed for complete redundancy and 100 percent uptime, as shown in a series of data center outages last summer, which reminded us that generators and UPS systems and breakers sometimes fail, and sometimes decide to fail together.

Murphy's Law hasn't been repealed, but a comprehensive maintenance program can help data center professionals keep equipment fit and identify problems before they become headlines. Processor recently ran a series of articles reinforcing the importance of preventive maintenance for data center equipment. The series includes Keeping Your Power Supplies Safe: Preventive Maintenance for Power Devices, Cooling Devices Need Maintenance Too: Never Neglect Your Data Center's Need To Beat The Heat and Maintaining Flooring, Racks & Furniture: Don't Neglect The Basics In Your Data Center.