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All Posts Tagged With: "Fire Detection"

Recently we have been writing a lot about how hot-aisle/cold aisle containment. It is important to be aware this strategy, fire detection and protection requires special attention.
A recent article in Search Data Center gives some good advice:
Hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment – a variation on the traditional data center best practice of hot-aisle/cold-aisle design – is a way for data [...]

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Today we are going to look at how fire detection systems can be used in Data Centers to prevent catastrophic loss and damage; we will focus on Very Early Smoke Detection Systems, (VESDA – Very Early Smoke Detection Alarm).
Without an efficient and safe environment, there is no way to be assured of business continuity. To [...]

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I was reading an article about the recent Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) Data Center Energy Summit, in San Francisco, engineers and data center pros gathered to study 11 case studies on energy efficiency. The data center studies varied, but one green data center tactic stood out: hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment.
The Hot Aisle readers know that data center best [...]

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A neat photograph of a set of gas cylinders containing Inergen that are used as part of a data center fire suppression system.
Recently I had an unplanned gas discharge at one of my data centers in the north of England. $140,000 of lost gas and a real pain.
Lesson learnt is don’t allow trucks to park [...]

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I had two great questions from Hot Aisle readers following the latest article on Cold Aisle containment. Dan asked about the impact on fire suppression and Mark asked about where we got the transparent curtains.
Lets start with the impact on fire systems of having either hot or cold aisle containment. The safety of personel working [...]

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The picture shows some Aspirating Smoke Detection Pipe located above an air handling unit. It is not unusual for unsupervised and inexperienced painters to paint over the pipe, blocking the microscopically small aspirating holes. These holes are used to suck samples of room air into a detection unit that can act as an early smoke [...]

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Way, way back in the stone age (whilst I was a student) I worked in the Edinburgh University Computer Labs keeping all of the hardware going. I had got a report of a DEC PDP 9 (drop me a mail if you know what one of these is) that kept restarting every few days all [...]

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A large open room with hundreds of Kilowatts or even Megawatts of electrical energy being consumed and a set of powerful fans blowing air in sounds like an ideal place to make a great fire! Detecting fire quickly and extinguishing it before it takes hold is a critically important feature of all data centers.
Fire Detection

Early [...]

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The thing about data centers is just how much power they use.  This one in Cardiff, Wales uses about 20MW of power and has huge strings of batteries storing power to drive the UPS units.  The batteries are kept in dedicated battery rooms that are air conditioned to keep the cells cool and maintain a [...]

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