Occasionally we have to turn off machines at short notice. There are a few reasons why we might need to do this:
- Power failure - when the machines will have just a few minutes in which to shut down cleanly before the UPS batteries are exhausted.
- Cooling failure - when they will be making the room dangerously hot.
- Plumbing problems - the basement can flood if the plumbing goes wrong.
If there's time, we'll try to contact you first. If the problem affects all machines in the self-managed server room, then we will mail the Self-managed server rooms mailing list.
How you can help
You must label your computers with contact details.
We suggest that you configure your servers to shut down when their front-panel power buttons are pressed.
We also suggest that you make your servers monitor the server room UPS, so that they will shutdown automatically whenever the UPS is signalling an 'on battery, low battery' condition. This is especially useful when there are power supply problems outside of normal working hours.
- ⇒ Power.
- ⇒ Monitoring the server room UPS.
- ⇒ Cooling.
More info
Find out more about the self-managed server rooms: