So many moons ago when I was looking into VoIP, I heard about the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association. (ITSPA). They’re the trade association which represents VoIP telephony in the UK and I’ve just applied for membership.
This December, they’re hosting an awards ceremony in the House of Commons Members dining room, and one of the categories is “Best Hardware”… So I decided to enter my DSX system and I’ve just found out they’re short-listed it for the award!
So naturally, I’m very pleased about this - more-so as I’ve never really done anything like this, so itrs all jolly exciting! I’ll be off to London on the 11th to see what happens… And if it does’nt win? Well, that’s life. If nothing else, it’ll be good to meet some of the people I’d read about, and even exchanged email with. Put faces to names, put the world to rights, that sort of thing!
November 7th, 2008
10:33 am
General
So for those who don’t know, the bulk of the servers in the Drogon Empire are hosted in a small anonymous data centre in Sheffield. This works well for me as I know the people personally who own and run it, I’ve seen their setup, know and understand how their network works and it’s generally “just fine” and things tick away without intervention.
Well - until 23:30 on the night of the 5th. (Bonfire night) when a fire across the road from them caused the emergency services to cut the power to the local area as a precaution. No worries, they have multiple UPSs and an on-site generator. A full tank of fuel will keep them going for over 24 hours, so no immediate issues. They’ve been able to secure access to keep the tank topped up every 12 hours and are expecting the mains to come on sometime later this morning (the 7th)
I know they make regular tests of their generator and UPSs, so life’s OK and although I’ve informed my major customers that were “at risk”, I’m really not expecting any drama.
But how often do you check your own UPSs? You do have UPSs, don’t you? How old are the batteries? Have you ever changed them? I have multiple UPSs at Drogon HQ. There’s a 1.5KVA double conversion unit unit feeding the main servers, PBXs and Internet connections, and 2 smaller ones in the office feeding the workstations, Wi-Fi access point and local network switch, and after 3 years I’m about to replace their batteries, or will I just buy new ones? Not sure yet. I’ve used this site in the past to buy new batteries from and while the service was good, I’m still in 2-minds about new batteries or a new UPS.
Comments always welcome!