Update: Google Data Center Fire and Data Center Fire Mitigation Tips

Google is looking the information middle office security occasion (what many are calling an arc flash, information middle fireplace, or information middle explosion) that injured three employees on Monday, August 8 on the agency’s Council Bluffs, IA information middle campus, {an electrical} incident.  

Whereas Google tells Data Center Data {the electrical} incident and the agency’s current outage of their Google search and Maps services are not related, each incidents occurred on the identical day, inside hours of one another. We created this timeline of occasions to chart the sequence of incidents that affected each customers and employees on Monday, August 8 and the next fallout on Tuesday, August 9: 

Associated: Apple Recovers From Massive Outage

All three injured employees are in steady situation, in line with a Google spokesperson.  

Associated: Facebook Users Report Global Outages Across Social Network

Under you may discover a picture of the probably location of {the electrical} incident in line with Omdia’s information middle analysis analysts. The part outlined in crimson is alleged to be the placement of the information middle’s substation(s). 

Picture credit score: Omdia Data Center Constructing Tracker

Data middle fireplace mitigation integrates employee security coaching and PPE 

Whether or not your digital infrastructure resides on-prem or in a colo, employee security offers distinctive challenges. To deal with the precise danger of fireside explosions because of arc flashes, Omdia senior principal analyst Moises Levy, PhD shares key insights: “To avoid human injuries, we need to protect personnel from arc flash hazards by using appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), remote operation of the equipment, periodic maintenance and training, among others.”  

As we transfer to a extra strategic focus, forward-thinking information middle operators deal with one thing known as risk-informed fireplace safety or risk-informed information middle engineering, in line with Paul Amico, apply lead at Jensen Hughes.  

The aim of risk-informed efforts is to rank the probability of a fireplace state of affairs after which apply sensible sources to its mitigation primarily based on the extent of likelihood and the fallout if an unlucky incident ought to happen. 

As an illustration, considerably uncommon arc flashes could cause substantial danger to the lives of knowledge middle employees, as evidenced by the next video:

In keeping with Amico, it’s necessary to have interaction in:  

• Data assortment on information middle facility structure
• Code assessment of native, nationwide and presumably worldwide security necessities
• Hazard identification (HAZID) to clear spot hazards and mitigate dangers
• Fire danger evaluation assessment and institution of danger acceptability thresholds
• Complete suggestions given the chance evaluation outcomes by means of a danger matrix

If you happen to’d like to duplicate this risk-informed model of fireside safety, contemplate reviewing Amico’s full documentation here. 

Contemplating the rising prices of knowledge middle fireplace mitigation 

As you assessment your information middle fireplace mitigation efforts, it’s possible you’ll determine areas of alternative for enchancment. One consideration is the price of upgrading gaseous suppression fireplace security techniques, in line with Omdia senior analyst Amir Boubaker. This has to do with each the elevated want for information through the current COVID-19 pandemic and for patrons utilizing U.S. {dollars} the present ranges of inflation which have elevated the prices of fireside security, in line with Boubaker. 

“End users in this field will not want to get caught out while many others are already investing in these systems,” mentioned Boubaker. 

Supply

Omdia, Fire Detection & Suppression Equipment Report – 2022 Analysis 

The Guardian, “Google outage: tech giant apologises after software update causes search engine to go down“

SFGATE, “Google says data center ‘electrical incident’ unrelated to Monday’s Google outage“