[bayindirh]

If you're running an IT operation this big, you should have both fire detection units and oxygen replacing suppressants.

That should be mandatory. Otherwise, it'd be very hard to contain. Especially when all your servers have RAID controllers with Li-Ion batteries or supercapacitors or other extremely trigger-happy components.

Oh, and cooling systems. You're just kindling the fire with it at the beginning.

[brmgb]

> oxygen replacing suppressants

No, they are a major risk to the employees working there.

I would much rather have a data center destroyed by for every twenty years without victims than mandating the user of oxygen replacing fire suppressants.

[mattbee]

My old company's DC uses FM200 gas which puts fires out without asphyxiating anyone (I'm assuming the experience would be a respiratory workout for anyone caught in it, but it would have cost £20000 to test).

[oasisbob]

Halon 1301 is still used for fire suppression aboard ships and aircraft. It can be safely flooded into confined spaces without killing people.

Calling these agents "oxygen suppressing" is a HUGE misnomer. Halon, FM200, etc don't work by reacting with the oxygen in the room. Although displacing some oxygen contributes to their method of action, this isn't the primary way they put out fires.

Halon and friends stop fires by catalytically interrupting gaseous fire reaction products. As it was explained to me, these reactions can be counterintuitive - eg, the production of reduced hydrogen gas (H2) from free radicals. You wouldn't expect Halon to put out a fire by making hydrogen, but it does.

[wumms]

Portable fire extinguishers:

- 16 USD (when buying in bulk 200+) [0]

- 236 USD ("Marine") [1]

12 Party balloons:

- 3 USD [2]

[0] https://mengfan.en.made-in-china.com/product/ksNEATWYXcVB/Ch...

[1] https://pacificfireandmarine.com/products/sea-fire-model-c-f...

[2] https://de.aliexpress.com/item/4000602253794.html

[mattbee]

Excellent, cheers! Now we can have a FM200 huffing party after lockdown!

[NullPrefix]

Oxygen suppresion doesn't damage the equipment. Good luck cleaning out your equipment after you spray fire extinguisher all over them.

[bayindirh]

All the fire extinguishers GP linked use either FM200 or equivalent clean agents. They're not "conventional" fire extinguishers. :)

[NullPrefix]

I see, thanks for the education.

[bayindirh]

I understand the concerns you have, however I think there's a good middle ground. Would you consider the following procedure acceptable?

    - Isolate all rooms with fire-proof doors.
    - Keep fire supression system at manual.
    - When fire breaks try to contain (we have 24h watch).
    - If fails trigger fire supression system. It has 90 second delay and activated per room.
    - Leave premsises, make the calls.

Fire control and supressant control is not inside the system room. Also fire-proof doors seal the room reasonably well, so chemical doesn't move freely. Also there are better chemicals which break down faster and less harmful to everything.

BTW, We use Novec.

[pcl]

Other industries use lock-out keys when people are in harm's way. It seems like it'd be easy enough to design an oxygen-replacement system that has lock-outs that people engage whenever they need to enter the protected rooms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout–tagout

[Symbiote]

I think it's a bit more complicated, since the extinguishing system is intended to be used in emergencies.

The usual system, e.g. in a train maintenance depot:

- Employee is going to work underneath the train, which therefore must not be moved. He isolates the power supply, and locks this isolation with his padlock.

A situation in which it's suddenly very important to reconnect the power is extremely unlikely. If the employee forgets to remove his padlock, it's disruptive but not dangerous. (I've seen this system once, and when people left for the day they were supposed to lock their padlocks on a special board as part of clocking out.)

For the datacentre, if the fire alarm goes off, everyone is supposed to leave by the nearest exit -- not go back the way they came in, unlocking their padlocks to allow the extinguishing system to be used.

[okl]

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." -- Douglas Adams

[bayindirh]

"Any attempt to make any system idiot proof will only challenge God to make a better idiot" is the version I like more actually.

[Mauricebranagh]

These days those systems are locked out when people are working in there.

Not so much in the old days :-)

I worked at palace (based at Cranfield uni) that had an experimental rig that used freon as a working fluid - we had emergency respirator sets (like the fire service uses) and people trained in them to use to rescue anyone.