Single-Phase UPS Lifecycle Management: Protecting IT Availability

In addition to tracking battery health, a battery lifecycle management program should enable oversight of the UPS itself. Much like an aging PC or server, the older a UPS system, the greater the risk of failure and the more the UPS will lack in terms of technological innovations and performance enhancements.

With an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), you have made a significant investment in power protection for your operations, so it doesn’t make sense to risk that investment on batteries that may not work when needed most. Your system availability depends on a working battery.

UPS batteries are built to provide several years of service, operating reliably even through repeated charging and occasional use while supporting critical loads. But like any battery, they have a defined lifecycle. The key challenge is to know when your batteries are nearing the end of their life expectancy and to be able to replace them before you get into a situation — such as a complete power outage — where they fail to protect the load.

These smaller UPS systems, ranging in capacity from 500 VA up to 20,000 VA, are usually overseen by IT/network managers and administrators within organizations having edge or remote computing locations. But when it comes to small or remote IT edge installations, out of sight is certainly not out of mind, especially with their vital role in meeting business and customer demands.

In this white paper, we will highlight the critical role of the battery within single-phase UPS systems and discuss the options for ensuring power and business continuity, especially as IT networks increase in size and complexity and/or become more dispersed.