Ensuring protection against power surges
And they risk having their claims for the repair or replacement of damaged equipment repudiated by their insurance companies.
That is the warning from Inus Dreckmeyr, MD of Proudly South African electronic research and development house, Netshield SA, who says that the standard surge protection methodologies adopted by most organisations often provide a false sense of security.
He points out that merely protecting against electrical surges is insufficient to protect expensive equipment.
“Protection is required against induced surging from switching loads on power grids that can be just as devastating as lightening strikes. These can be carried into the building via electrical wiring, telecommunications lines and wireless antenna. Where surge protection is applied, it usually involves placing a protection device on a line. The device will simply clamp the line to prevent the surge from passing through to the equipment being protected.
“This works well – once and possibly twice. Most of these units are designed to absorb a certain amount of energy. Once that level is reached, the unit fails. The problem is that no one knows when or if a unit has failed.
“How often does the electricity in a building trip as a result of a power surge and someone simply flips the trip switch, power is restored and everything is back to normal – or so it seems. But if the power protection unit has failed, the next surge comes that along could pass right through the 'clamp’ and destroy vital equipment,” Dreckmeyr explains.
And that is when an organisation might find that, having already suffered downtime while servers and other equipment is repaired or replaced, the insurance claim for the equipment is repudiated because the insurance policy demands that equipment be protected by surge protection equipment. If the surge protection unit was not working at the time of the surge, then the conditions for insurance cover might not have been met.
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