Auckland Power Outage Risks Information Loss

News release

For immediate release, 4 February 2009

Auckland Power Outage Risks Critical Information Loss

Following the power outage in Auckland yesterday that left 74,000 customers without power and several people stuck in lifts, APC, which provides protection against some of the leading causes of downtime, data loss and hardware damage, is asking Aucklanders to reflect on what might have happened to their data.

"Businesses, hospitals, schools, emergency services, individuals and many others besides, have information stored on computers that is at risk when the power cuts out," said Andrew Kirker, Country Manager, APC New Zealand.

Kirker asks local businesses and residents to consider:

• Were they working on any critical documents at the time of the outage?

• When did they last save their work?

• When did they last run a back-up of their data?

• How long were their employees unable to access their computers and were they losing productivity and revenue during this time?

• Was any of their hardware damaged?

He continues: "This is Auckland's second power outage in a matter of weeks. With demand for energy constantly on the increase, power outages are not uncommon. Everyone from large enterprises to consumers should have battery back-up systems in place to make sure their IT equipment stays up and running in these situations and they don't lose any critical data.

"These can help guard against power surges as well, when the power does come back on.

"It's no use waiting until the worst happens. Think of it as an insurance policy for your in-formation, not to mention a safeguard against potential business downtime if the outage strikes during working hours."

ENDS

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