[AusNOG] Global switch Level 4 Hard disk's

Mon Jan 13 18:36:02 EST 2014

Somewhat old now but is still relevant to discussions like this
Risk based assessments of different systems done by DSTO back in the post halon era .
http://dspace.dsto.defence.gov.au/dspace/bitstream/1947/4310/1/DSTO-TR-1126.pdf?origin=publication_detail

Sent from my iPhone

On 13 Jan 2014, at 17:18, "Joshua D'Alton" <joshua at railgun.com.au<mailto:joshua at railgun.com.au>> wrote:

Suffice to say it still isn't recommended to actually sustain breathing in such an environment, but the couple minutes it could take you to vacate a DC (or affected area) you'll do fine breathing that. Possibly not so much those with asthma or lung issues, but you shouldn't pass out or the like.

On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 5:57 PM, Ben Buxton <bb.ausnog at bb.cactii.net<mailto:bb.ausnog at bb.cactii.net>> wrote:

The volume discharged is calculated such that residual O2 remains (about 10% v/v). The CO2 is intended to induce a physiological reaction which causes you to breath heavier to compensate.

There's probably a page describing the reasoning behind the numbers (wikipedia maybe?)

BB

On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 5:53 PM, Tony de Francesco <tonyd at pue.com.au<mailto:tonyd at pue.com.au>> wrote:

And last time I drew a breathe I could not live on a mixture of 52% nitrogen, 40% argon and 8% carbon dioxide.

Regards

Tony de Francesco
Technical Director
P.U.E. Pty Ltd
Mob: +61 (0) 457 701 179<tel:%2B61%20%280%29%20457%20701%20179>
Email: tonyd at pue.com.au<mailto:tonyd at pue.com.au>

On 13/01/2014 5:45 PM, "Tony de Francesco" <tonyd at pue.com.au<mailto:tonyd at pue.com.au>> wrote:

Yes but Inergen is not used in large DCs because of the volume required.

The European system is a hypoxic system at low pressure. Very different to dumping a whole bunch of gas through high pressure nozzles.

Regards

Tony de Francesco
Technical Director
P.U.E. Pty Ltd
Mob: +61 (0) 457 701 179<tel:%2B61%20%280%29%20457%20701%20179>
Email: tonyd at pue.com.au<mailto:tonyd at pue.com.au>

On 13/01/2014 5:33 PM, "Ben Buxton" <bb.ausnog at bb.cactii.net<mailto:bb.ausnog at bb.cactii.net>> wrote:

Inergen is an inert system. It's just Nitrogen, Argon and CO2, perfectly safe for humans to breath the resulting atmosphere post-discharge, as it still contains enough oxygen to support life but not fire.

BB

On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 5:22 PM, Tony de Francesco <tonyd at pue.com.au<mailto:tonyd at pue.com.au>> wrote:

Not all data centres use fire supression gases like FM200 or Inergen, although the Australian DC market seems hooked on these gas solutions.

Such systems are actually banned throughout much of Europe where instead they deploy an oxygen reduction system, which operates by filling the room with an inert gas to reduce the oxygen levels in order to stop a fire but still support human life (with no effect on electrical equipment!).

Regards

Tony de Francesco
Technical Director
P.U.E. Pty Ltd

On 13/01/2014 4:22 PM, "Jared Hirst" <jared.hirst at serversaustralia.com.au<mailto:jared.hirst at serversaustralia.com.au>> wrote:
Must be a very good reason, they have 100+ DC's all the same :(

-----Original Message-----
From: Nathan Brookfield [mailto:Nathan.Brookfield at simtronic.com.au<mailto:Nathan.Brookfield at simtronic.com.au>]
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2014 4:21 PM
To: Jared Hirst; Joseph Goldman; ausnog at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
Subject: RE: [AusNOG] Global switch Level 4 Hard disk's

Yeah so it just means when/if a fire starts your equipment is completely
SCREWED instead of just some blown drives.  I wouldn't say this is an
advantage at all.

Kindest Regards,
Nathan Brookfield (VK2NAB)

Chief Executive Officer
Simtronic Technologies Pty Ltd

Local: (02) 4749 4949 | Fax: (02) 4749 4950 | Direct: (02) 4749 4951
Web: http://www.simtronic.com.au | E-mail:
nathan.brookfield at simtronic.com.au<mailto:nathan.brookfield at simtronic.com.au>

-----Original Message-----
From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net>] On Behalf Of Jared
Hirst
Sent: Monday, 13 January 2014 4:17 PM
To: Joseph Goldman; ausnog at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Global switch Level 4 Hard disk's

" but the generality of the fault means it could happen in any major data
center really."

Wouldn't happen in Equinix... They use Dry Pipe and manual fire supression
to alleviate any 'accidental' systems going off :)

I would class that as a pretty major Data Centre.

-----Original Message-----
From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net>] On Behalf Of Joseph
Goldman
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2014 4:15 PM
To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Global switch Level 4 Hard disk's

It's not quite so funny when you realise some people may have hours - or
days - worth of headache's ahead of them restoring back to production.

It is an odd circumstance, and one that I would not have thought of
personally in risk mitigation (beyond accounting for fire anyway). Are
there drives rated against this kind of 'shock'? Obviously one should have
Disaster Recovery in place, as the gas suppression going off may indicate
your servers being doused in fire and unusable anyway, but when one can
avoid DR one would, and I'd rather not break on a false positive.

Luckily I don't use Global Switch, but the generality of the fault means
it could happen in any major data center really.

On 13/01/14 16:08, Tim March wrote:
> Lol. Awesome.
>
> So, does the incident report look something like;
>
> 12:01 "CCTV records HVAC maintenance punter smoking cigarette"
> 12:03 "Suppression system dumps 987165128973465891723412352643345^2
> liters of gas in to machine room in ~ 0.000000001675 seconds"
> 12:03 "Sonic boom recorded at BOM monitoring station 50km from facility"
> 12:04 *picture of engineer crying / HDD parts strewn all over floor*
>
>
>
>
> T.
>
> On 13/01/14 3:22 PM, Pinkerton, Eric (AU Sydney) wrote:
>> It's not unheard of, it's to do with the noise created when the fire
suppression system deploys...
>>
>> http://www.bvfa.de/pdf-download/en-3/
>>
>> http://www.buildingtechnologies.siemens.com/bt/global/en/firesafety/e
>> xtinguishing/about-sinorix/latest-technical-findings/Documents/White_
>> Paper_Potential%20damage%20to%20hard%20disk%20drives%20during%20disch
>> arges_en_September2012.pdf
>>
>> There is even a market for nozzles on fire suppression systems that
lowers the sound in order to prevent this happening..
>>
>> See the WWW.FIKE.COM<http://WWW.FIKE.COM>  PROINERT(r) HUSH NOZZLES
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net>] On Behalf Of
>> Matt Perkins
>> Sent: Monday, 13 January 2014 2:26 PM
>> To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
>> Subject: [AusNOG] Global switch Level 4 Hard disk's
>>
>> Hi All,
>>    I have quite a few people today with hard drives fail in suites on
level 4 at global switch.  GS tell us the Gas was dropped in response to
some smoke from some plant. Not sure how inergen would effect hard drives
but there are many people wondering around on level 4 looking like there
dog just died.
>>
>> Anybody have any more info.
>>
>> Matt
>>
>> --
>> /* Matt Perkins
>>           Direct 1300 137 379     Spectrum Networks Ptd. Ltd.
>>           Office 1300 133 299     matt at spectrum.com.au<mailto:matt at spectrum.com.au>
>>           Fax    1300 133 255     Level 6, 350 George Street Sydney
2000
>>           SIP 1300137379 at sip.spectrum.com.au<mailto:1300137379 at sip.spectrum.com.au>
>>           PGP/GNUPG Public Key can be found at  http://pgp.mit.edu */
>>
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