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A comment on OVHcloud fire: SBG2 data center had no extinguisher, no power cut-out. Parent comment

Re:OVHcloud fire: SBG2 data center had no extinguisher, no p... by bayindirh on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @07:41AM (#30764862)
A proper datacenter can be both efficient and safe. Add solid blidners to close the chimneys, and an oxygen suppressant system (NOVEC, etc.), and add motorized switch-fuses. They can all be orchestrated by a PLC, and a fire alarm/control system.

Close blinds, release NOVEC, disable power rails to computers. That's all. It might not stop everything, but it can help a lot.

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Re:OVHcloud fire: SBG2 data center had no extinguisher, no p... by snovv_crash on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @09:45AM (#30766005)
You can even have passive gates to close ducting which have a wax element which releases if it gets too hot. No extra electrical or PLC knowledge required, just put these on your inlets and outlets and you're good to go.
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Re:OVHcloud fire: SBG2 data center had no extinguisher, no p... by throwaway0a5e on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @09:12AM (#30765626)
<virtue A>

<virtue B>

Affordable.

Pick two.

Unless you assume other people's money is unlimited (which is the accepted industry standard for online discourse related to subjects such as safety and reliability) there will always be tradeoffs.

It's really easy to make low effort comments about the right balance being obvious when you're defining the right choice as "literally any balance of factors that does not recreate the precise set of circumstances that lead to the events that spurned this discussion."

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Re:OVHcloud fire: SBG2 data center had no extinguisher, no p... by k8sToGo on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @07:58AM (#30764990)
Of course you can, but I guess at that point you don't build your DC out of shipping containers.
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Re:OVHcloud fire: SBG2 data center had no extinguisher, no p... by bayindirh on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @08:00AM (#30765005)
Theoretically, you can. We looked into it.

Also, Chinese build solid DC buildings out of containers. It's indeed possible.

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Re:OVHcloud fire: SBG2 data center had no extinguisher, no p... by asciimike on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @08:41AM (#30765327)
Which providers were you looking at? IIRC Huawei was the only company providing ISO container DCs, but the were super low density (e.g. 50kW total) compared to what the original Google/Sun/HP designs were.
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Re:OVHcloud fire: SBG2 data center had no extinguisher, no p... by gregoriol on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @08:41AM (#30765324)
Shipping containers are better against fire than wood. But here it's what was inside that seems to have been a problem, not the outer structure.
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Re:OVHcloud fire: SBG2 data center had no extinguisher, no p... by brohee on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @08:21PM (#30773340)
How are they better? Metal structures last minutes not hours when enough heat is involved...
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Re:OVHcloud fire: SBG2 data center had no extinguisher, no p... by AnssiH on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @11:38AM (#30767408)
Just for the record so people don't get the wrong idea, SBG2 was not built out of shipping containers. OVH has other DCs that are, though.
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