Austin summers can challenge the strength, stamina and health of just about anyone – or anything, including delicate IT systems that must maintain a high degree of precision performance at all times. If you're worried about whether your organization's servers, workstations, archived data and other IT essentials can weather the triple digits we always seem to get at this time of year, here are some seasonal tips from your Austin IT support team at Gravity Systems.

Ventilate, ventilate, ventilate. Most tech hardware gives off a certain amount of waste heat, so when you crowd a bunch of these devices together, you've already got a dangerously hot problem on your hands – and the summer heat will just make things worse. To prevent premature wear, overheating and failure, keep plenty of space between these devices, including overhead and underneath “breathing room.” Make and extra effort to keep these devices dust-free as well, since dust can interfere with air flow.

 Control your control-room climate. While you may be tempted to spend most of your AC budget cooling your employees, a fair chunk of it should go toward climate control for your technical gear. If you have server racks or other collections of hardware, keep them in an area that receives plenty of nice cold air – and don't let people tamper with the room's thermostat.

 Keep removable media away from sunny windows. Many organizations have years of valuable data backed up onto tape drives, CD-Rs and other forms of removable media. Unfortunately, that data isn't necessarily safe from the sun. Recordable CDs use dyes that can eventually be bleached out by UV rays, while any media container made of plastic can melt under intense thermal energy. Keep your media shelves well away from direct sunlight!

 Want more summertime IT advice? Contact our Austin IT business support experts!

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