[AusNOG] [AUSNog] : Re Data Centre Fire Suppression Safety

[Scott Howard]

Argonite and similar systems work by reducing the oxygen level into the
10-15% range where humans can still breath, but fire can not be sustained.

The chemicals in Argonite are not harmful to humans, so whilst the drop in
oxygen level will certainly have an impact on anyone in the datacenter, it
will not present any real danger and is not deadly like Halon can be.

Halon is largely banned in Australia, although it can still be used in a
very restricted number of uses cases where there are no other options.
This was done mainly due to it's environmental impacts (in particular it's
impact on the ozone layer) rather than due to safety concerns.

  Scott


On Wed, Dec 12, 2018 at 4:22 PM Christopher Hawker <me at chrishawker.com.au>
wrote:

> We all will be safe in Equinix DCs, as they don’t use Halon:
>
> “We use dry pipe fire suppression, which means there’s no water in the
> pipes until it’s needed to put out the fire. We think water is superior to
> using the firefighting chemical compound Halon, because water Is less
> damaging to technology and Halon can destroy circuit cards.”
>
> Source:
> https://blog.equinix.com/blog/2014/03/26/we-must-protect-this-house-against-disaster/
>
> Can’t say the same for NextDC (M1 at the very least:
>
> “This is because gas is a mixture of argon and nitrogen that suppresses
> fire by depleting oxygen in the the data hall.”
>
> Source:
> https://www.nextdc.com/blog/m1-argonite-fire-suppression-gas-cylinders
>
> CH
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 13 Dec 2018, at 10:53 am, Paul Wilkins <paulwilkins369 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Every data centre has a fire suppression system. We're not used to
> thinking of this as a hazardous environment, but consequent to two techs
> being found dead working on a fire suppression system in Antarctica
> <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/12/antarctica-two-technicians-dead-mcmurdo-station-ross-island>,
> I find myself wondering yet again, why there aren't more stringent controls
> around the fire suppression systems in data centres: viz - when you enter a
> data centre, how confident can you be you're not going to be quietly
> asphyxiated?
>
> Kind regards
>
> Paul Wilkins
>
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