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posted by CoolHand on Monday September 12 2016, @01:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the booms-and-bangs dept.

https://motherboard.vice.com/read/a-loud-sound-just-shut-down-a-banks-data-center-for-10-hours

ING Bank's main data center in Bucharest, Romania, was severely damaged over the weekend during a fire extinguishing test. In what is a very rare but known phenomenon, it was the loud sound of inert gas being released that destroyed dozens of hard drives. The site is currently offline and the bank relies solely on its backup data center, located within a couple of miles' proximity.

"The drill went as designed, but we had collateral damage", ING's spokeswoman in Romania told me, confirming the inert gas issue. Local clients were unable to use debit cards and to perform online banking operations on Saturday between 1PM and 11PM because of the test. "Our team is investigating the incident," she said.

The purpose of the drill was to see how the data center's fire suppression system worked. Data centers typically rely on inert gas to protect the equipment in the event of a fire, as the substance does not chemically damage electronics, and the gas only slightly decreases the temperature within the data center.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Hyperturtle on Monday September 12 2016, @08:49PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Monday September 12 2016, @08:49PM (#400918)

    I am seriously doubting it was Halon in the dump of 'inert gas', and wonder about your co-workers.

    Halon is a toxic chemical and is a central nervous system irritant. Wikipedia has all the relevant details.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromotrifluoromethane [wikipedia.org]

    I would expect the gas to be Inergen instead -- also in canisters, also a pain clean up after. All of comments of the mess the gas makes seem to be more in line with Inergen from what I understand -- I've been through a few of those.

    Every incident of its deployment involved user error. One time from the company testing the smoke detectors; the guy in one case was throwing his full body weight against a pair of double doors that were trying to open from the pressure--security doors (like fire doors with badge access to a datacenter types of doors) blown off their hinges. The guy was bruised from head to toe. And the mainframe printer room -- it was like a tornado got in there and threw all the toner (which was in giant multi gallon bottles) into the air and all over the place. Tractor feed and laser printer paper all over the place as well. The print operators were pretty traumatized as there was no warning.

    Not only did the place go down, but on top of the service disruption, it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars; one time it was caused by the company providing the Inergen gas. It cost thousands just to recertify the system -- tens of thousands. Remember, stuff that sat unused for years suddenly had a huge gas discharge blown through at high pressures and blew the caps off things and cracked other stuff.

    Then another time a contractual foreign national that followed in the badge swipe of another person from the same firm had never seen the red button on the wall before, and pressed it. There is no un-press the button feature--there is no bypass like how there is with an actual smoke or fire alarm. The system presumes if you lifted the shield and pressed the button, you mean business. Again, six digits of damage. Another time someone didn't think a cigarette would set it off.

    The gas has to be replaced, and the system it connects to has to be inspected and certified.

    Then everything the gas gets sucked into or condenses on -- servers, fans, air filters, vent grilles, the space under raised floors... all gets covered in dust and much and stuff that got blown around after years of being still.

    The fact that disk drives now are now too sensitive to withstand this sort of air pressure (which can tear doors off their hinges) tells me that the damages nowadays are much higher...

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by tangomargarine on Monday September 12 2016, @09:11PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Monday September 12 2016, @09:11PM (#400930)

    For example, Halon 1301 total flooding systems are typically used at concentrations no higher than 7% by volume in air, and can suppress many fires at 2.9% v/v. By contrast, carbon dioxide fire suppression flood systems operate from 34% concentration by volume (surface-only combustion of liquid fuels) up to 75% (dust traps). Carbon dioxide can cause severe distress at concentrations of 3–6%, and has caused death by respiratory paralysis in a few minutes at 10% concentration. Halon 1301 causes only slight giddiness at its effective concentration of 5%, and even at 15% those exposed remain conscious but impaired and suffer no long-term effects. (Experimental animals have also been exposed to 2% concentrations of Halon 1301 for 30 hours per week for 4 months, with no discernible health effects.) Halon 1211 also has low toxicity, although it is more toxic than Halon 1301, and thus considered unsuitable for flooding systems.

    However, Halon 1301 fire suppression is not completely non-toxic; very high temperature flame, or contact with red-hot metal, can cause decomposition of Halon 1301 to toxic byproducts.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halomethane#Fire_extinguishing [wikipedia.org]

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 2) by weeds on Tuesday September 13 2016, @02:55PM

    by weeds (611) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @02:55PM (#401320) Journal

    Well, my friend, you can doubt it all you want.
    I spec'd the system, I selected the system, I purchased the system, I supervised the installation of the system, and I was in the room for the test.
    Those cylinders that said HALON on them were connected and I had the pleasure of sounding like Michael Clarke Duncan for the few minutes we were in there.
    As you may have deduced from my mention of the computers and drives, this was in the early 1980's.
    As I recall, the percentage was something like 4% and once the meter (on the floor, since Halon is heavier than air) registered that, the doors were opened.
    I can say for certain that no one exposed died during the test or within the next 5 years that I worked there.

    And thank you tangomargarine for the details.