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

[Matthew Thompson]

The NextDC system reminds me of a similar one that is widely used at a
particular carrier’s exchanges, known as Inergen. I was always taught that
the Inergen system would lower oxygen concentration but not low enough to
incapacitate you unless you stayed in the environment for an extended
period. Basically, if you heard the Inergen deployment alarm go off, you
had a good few minutes to evacuate safely without asphyxiating.

On Thu, 13 Dec 2018 at 10:23, 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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-- 
Kind regards,
Matthew Thompson
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