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Disaster Preparedness
Importance of Fail Safe System Training
"At 8 am, $26,000 worth of Halon was dumped into the data center. The amount of damage to the center has not been assessed, neither has the cost to recharge the system.
However, all personnel did as they were trained to do. One person pushed the fail safe, while others searched for the location of the smoke.
Unfortunately, the fail safe was only set for ten seconds and the Halon dumped as the smoke was cleared. The smoke was discovered coming from a burning motor in an air conditioning unit."
Luckily, we don't hear stories like this often. But occurrences like the above are not that uncommon. Ninety-nine percent of all fire suppression system activations in the last five years have been the result of episodes other than fire.
We do hear these stories more often as systems and regulations change. However, not all the personnel that are working in data centers on a regular basis are informed of these changes and the new procedures that accompany them.
A quick survey of our customers revealed that most keep their fail safe set between 45 and 90 seconds. However, not all were certain that everyone was trained on the system that might need to be (including the night security, who at times may be the only people there).
To prevent events like this from occurring in your data center we recommend taking a few notes of precaution:
- Check to see what your fail safe system time setting is at
- Ensure that all who need to be trained on the fail safe operation have been trained
- Check the override capabilities of your fire suppression system.
- Make the location of the fireboard well known and highly visible.
We have said many times that the chances of a fire in the data center are very remote. It is our aim to keep such an event as remote as possible. We encourage you to examine these procedures in your data center to prevent a disaster from occurring.
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What's Under
your
Data Center
Floor?
Well, we hope it's not a groundhog that pops up when you pull a tile (especially if he is going to see his shadow when he emerges from the under floor). However, there are a lot of things under the floor that could effect your business mission -- a groundhog being the least of your worries.
These under floor irregularities can wreak havoc in the data center if gone unchecked.
We have compiled a list of risk factors and items to look for to determine if you have a problem in your under floor. We will be posting it on our website soon. Continue to check our web page next month to look for this information!
Air Plenum Publications
By: Matthew Frank
www.airplenum.com
©2003 Air Plenum
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