Hello,

 

I have a known power outage coming tomorrow. I don't think it should impact my server, however I want to be safe. Will turning FileMaker Server 13 off cause any issues when I turn it back on after the outage? I know the machine itself will auto-restart once power is reconnected at which point I'll go back in and restart FMServer, but I don't want any of the files themselves to be damaged when I know of this possibility in advance.

 

It is better to close all the DB files on the server and stop the DB engine before a known power outage. This way, your DB files should not be damaged by a sudden interruption.

That was my thoughts, I was just wanting to verify I wasn't missing any issues. Thanks!

While any DB is busy writing data to its database on disk, loss of power can result in serious corruption. If loss of power occurs when the DB is idling, corruption can still occur but is much less likely. Prevention is always better of course. But ensuring your server is on a UPS means that when you loose power to the building unannounced, all users will be disconnected immediately, the FM server will keep on running until the UPS runs out (ideally 15 or more minutes), and finishes all transactions that were pending. In which case loss of data is also slim. Unless scripts happened to be running, then you could be screwed again. :-P

Of course, when you have your FM server connected to a UPS, you also want to make sure you have the UPS setup in FM, so that it can shut itself down when the UPS reaches critical thresholds.

OS X has built-in UPS power management features over USB.   So it's quite easy to buy a consumer-grade UPS, plug in the USB cable, and configure the behavior you want on power failure.    This may not be any better when you have a planned outage, but for the unplanned ones, it's quite nice.

 

See http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/support/faqs/faq_OSX_UPS.htmlwhich is an example from cyberPower but this feature is generic and works on other brands, too.

For one clients office we most users were on laptops ( built in battery ) the few iMacs we put a UPS under their desk, also in the server room we had a good enough UPS where we put the Modem, Router, Switch, and Server.

 

The power went out and all data in transit was safe nobody got disconnected - in fact someone was in the process of running a report that took time - and that finished (couldn't print it) but was able to save it as PDF to print it out later.

 

Every body followed protocol and closed the databases and the server shut down as schedule most users were still able to work on other things while on battery - and even surf the web. (cable modem was still up ) even the PBX phones were working as it had its own UPS.