Data Hall FS Standards

[Messy]

Can anyone point me to any standards which relate to fire safety procedures and infrastructure at top tier data hall sites.

I am aware of BS6266 but am wondering if there are other standards or example of best practice other than NFPA guidance. Do the Insurance industry have uniform standards?

Thanks

[Fishy]

We use BS 9999 and BS 6266 for UK projects; NFPA 75 is specified in some other parts of the world.  BS 6266 is pretty good and (in my experience) usually answers most of the design questions, provided that you get the right peoples'  input.

[Messy]

Many thanks

[Messy]

The reason for my enquiry into accepted standards is I am trying to convince a client to consider installing suppression to two data halls. These are of a significant size to warrant such a control measure.

There is VESDA and an L1 AFD plus sophisticated UPS arrangements. But the fire safety approach relies on hand held FFE and a response from retained fire crews some distance away. The two nearest stations rarely have day time cover

I have been through BS6266 and IMO that assessment is screaming suppression. But it falls on deaf ears.

I will of course record my advice and walk away. But is there anything else I should try to persuade the client to wake up and smell the coffee?

[David Rooney]

Ask him how much he might lose if just one of his server racks went down for a week ..... and what are the implications of the smoke damage to the rest of his hard drives?

You could ask the systems manufacturer for their thoughts - if it's Fujitsu they are normally quite good coming forward with lists of potential issues etc.

Would also be interesting to know what handheld extinguishers he intends to use as these may cause more damage than a fire.

And do they have any method of shutting down (EPO - Emergency Power Off) the servers if there is a problem ... a handheld isn't going to do much if it's an electrical fire in a rack or in the floor void .....

[wee brian]

Have two data suites. Job done.

[Fishy]

Have two data suites. Job done.

Had a fairly recent job where the client (owner/operator) had a project constructing a new data processing facility supporting a business-critical process.  Half-hearted spec that they'd written themselves specifying a gaseous extinguishing system, but manually operated (close to useless, IMHO - especially as the building was usually unstaffed).  Nothing else about fire protection at all - despite the fact that the most critical facility was on a first floor.

We got involved & managed to persuade them to follow BS 6266 & I ran a formal risk assessment workshop with all the key stakeholders represented.  One of the first questions I asked was "...is there a back-up facility..."?  They said they didn't need one, because they had the fire extinguishing system.  I pointed out to them that the manual extinguishing system (even if properly designed, installed & maintained - which they rarely are, in my experience) would only reduce (not eliminate) fire risk, & there were a whole host of other risks (flood, complete power supply loss etc, etc...) that it does nothing to mitigate.  Nevertheless they stuck with the single facility (primarily because the decision had already been made) and we spec'd Novec - automatically fired, together with a whole host of other fire protection & management measures.  Job done.  6 months later - just before construction - got an email from the client's lead PM... "If we were to have a back-up facility, would we need all this expensive fire engineering..."?