Rolling power cuts are a real possibility this winter. The UK Government’s latest reasonable worst-case scenario suggests “an energy capacity shortfall of about a sixth of peak demand”.

As an internet service provider looking after businesses across the UK, keeping our customers online and working is always a priority. Below, we have put together a simple guide to preparing your business for powercuts.

So what are the considerations and precautions to keep your business operating this winter?

Will your systems be accessible during a power cut?

Whether you can retain access to critical business applications and systems can determine whether your business will remain operational, productive and therefore profitable.

Consider:

How will you ensure employees and customers can access your systems and services when your servers are offline?

• Can your employees work remotely if your main business site has gone down?

Precaution:

Colocation, moving your servers to an off-site data centre, is an option worth considering. This can improve your network’s reliability, as data centres have redundancy power supplies, and could even bring lower energy costs for your business. For more information on whether you should move your office servers to a data centre, read our recent article.

Consider:

• How much data would you lose if there is a sudden power cut?

Precaution:

Regular backups of systems and databases can also mitigate the worst impacts of power outages.