As the UK faces another spell of extreme heat, IT teams need to be thinking beyond the immediate risk of power outages. Recent incidents, including the temporary shutdown of Cambridge’s Dawn AI supercomputer, are a reminder that even the most advanced tech is vulnerable when physical infrastructure is put under strain.

Whether it’s a research platform or a business critical application, even a brief loss of power can have a knock on effect across interconnected systems, especially in hybrid environments where applications and infrastructure span both on site and in the cloud.

The pressure is always to restore services as quickly as possible, but rushing systems back online without understanding the root cause can create even bigger problems. IT leaders need to know which systems have been affected, what dependencies are at risk and where to focus their efforts first. Without that context, recovery becomes slower, more complex and the risk of secondary failures increases.

As extreme weather becomes more common in the UK, resilience needs to be built into day to day operations, not treated as something that’s only tested during a crisis. Organisations with a complete view of their technology estate are far better placed to identify issues early, make informed decisions under pressure and keep critical services running when disruption inevitably occurs.