Power manager Eaton has launched its Blackout and Power Outage Tracker - a tool that helps data centers to check their vulnerability to power grid outages.

The new tracker is an interface into intelligence on the state of the power grid, both locally and across the national coverage of the UK and Republic of Ireland provided by subscribers.

The system is designed to allow data center managers to explore the causes, duration and number of people affected by power outages.

It calculates the impact and assembles intelligence submitted by subscribers.

The system allows data center operators to submit their own black out reports as part of the intelligence gathering.

Eaton’s system then calculates the impact on people and businesses in their region and gives data centers background information for submitting damages claims against their utility provider.

Eaton’s PQ channel sales manager Steve Spicer said it is using the Blackout and Power Outage Tracker system to raise awareness of the need for uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs).

“A power outage is just one of nine common power problems but if protection against it is not considered, it can seriously threaten a business’ network functionality,” Spicer said.

Though many of the power outage events – such as lightning strikes, downed power lines, grid over-demands, accidents and natural disasters – are unpredictable, the Tracker will focus attention on prevention, according to Eaton.

“Although some of these causes may be unpreventable, with the right power protection a company can help protect its data and equipment during any blackout,” Spicer said.

In June Eaton announced that it had integrated its power management system with EMC’s VSPEX infrastructure systems, with the new composite aimed at private clouds, data centers and end-user computing.

Eaton said its target is to simplify power infrastructure deployment for the VSPEX platform.

Eaton’s 9PX UPS, managed ePDU rack-based power distribution units and Intelligent Power Manager software were the first components to receive lab verification from EMC for VSPEX interoperability.