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

[Chris Ford]

My reference to Halon was from nearly 30 years ago … as others have noted it’s mostly replaced by Argonite / FM200 which doesn’t kill you which may be why the inductions don’t focus on that so much anymore.

On water – if I recall correctly (it was 30 years ago) IBM was recommending back then that water was better than Halon (didn’t really damage the gear and didn’t kill the staff)

--
Chris Ford
Chief Technology Officer

INABOX GROUP
m 0401 988 844 e chris.ford at inaboxgroup.com.au
t 02 8275 6871 w www.inaboxgroup.com.au

From: AusNOG <ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net> On Behalf Of Christopher Hawker
Sent: Thursday, 13 December 2018 11:22 AM
To: Paul Wilkins <paulwilkins369 at gmail.com>; ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] [AUSNog] : Re Data Centre Fire Suppression Safety

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<mailto: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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