Halon has been banned in Australia for about 20 years and it’s not that deadly
as it’s made out to be I had a halon extinguisher in the cockpit of my plane
which would not be ok if it were poison. Most DC in .au use FM200 or inergen.
I’m thinking they used CO2 in the remote station as it requires less gas and is
cheaper to transport. Inergen requires massive amounts of gas almost the volume
of the protected area which would not be practical in a remote area. Co2 is
also often used in high power environments where you can get a burning metal
fire.
Don’t stir up a fuss here your safe in your DC if you have payed attention to
your induction and leave when your told.
There is also an interesting suppression system that lowers the oxygen in the
room so combustion can not be supported. It’s interesting because humans
inhabit the room while the oxygen is lowered. Seems that a fire needs more
oxygen then a human! I have seen a demo with people attempting to light matches
inside that environement which extinguish almost instantly.
Matt
--
/* Matt Perkins
Direct 1300 137 379 Spectrum Networks Ptd. Ltd.
Office 1300 133 299 m...@spectrum.com.au
Fax 1300 133 255 Level 6, 350 George Street Sydney 2000
SIP 1300137...@sip.spectrum.com.au
Google Talk mattaperk...@gmail.com
PGP/GNUPG Public Key can be found at http://pgp.mit.edu
*/
> On 13 Dec 2018, at 11:29 am, Paul Wilkins <paulwilkins...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> See I would expect there would be an Australian Standard for Data Centre Fire
> Suppression
> Systems, with regular inspections that were certified and the certificate on
> display in the data centre.
>
> And as I haven't noticed this, and Chris hasn't noticed this, I would guess
> it's not a gap in places I've worked, but there's a more widespread lack of
> governance around inspections.
>
> Furthermore, the fire suppressant, may leak. Halon is poisonous and can
> impair your judgement. So there ought to be an alarm that detects if Halon is
> present. It's not good enough to rely on the fire alarm to warn you of the
> presence of fire suppressant, because you could have a leak without a fire.
>
> One would have to assume the people in Antarctica knew what they were doing,
> and yet, something went wrong and now they're dead.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Paul Wilkins
>
>
>> On Thu, 13 Dec 2018 at 11:00, Chris Ford <chris.f...@inaboxgroup.com.au>
>> wrote:
>> As a university cadet working for IBM in the late 80s I remember getting
>> inducted into the Westpac data centres and getting a long explanation of
>> what to do when the halon system went off – where the breathing gear was,
>> where the exits were, to basically just drop everything and run.
>>
>>
>>
>> Have been inducted into a few DCs in the last 3 years and can’t remember
>> that being part of the induction at all – although given I already knew it I
>> may have just glossed over that part.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Chris Ford
>>
>> Chief Technology Officer
>>
>>
>>
>> INABOX GROUP
>>
>> m 0401 988 844 e chris.f...@inaboxgroup.com.au
>>
>> t 02 8275 6871 w www.inaboxgroup.com.au
>>
>>
>>
>> From: AusNOG <ausnog-boun...@lists.ausnog.net> On Behalf Of Paul Wilkins
>> Sent: Thursday, 13 December 2018 10:53 AM
>> To: AusNOG@lists.ausnog.net
>> Subject: [AusNOG] [AUSNog] : Re Data Centre Fire Suppression Safety
>>
>>
>>
>> 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, 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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