DISASTER RECOVERY
Protecting People and Data from Fire
Keeping Business Flowing
By Stefano Valdrighi, Director Global Business Development, Siemens Building Technologies
Introduction
Stefano Valdrighi
tackles the central
tasks of a fire safety
system
Today, 35 million servers worldwide are
processing an ever-increasing quantity
of data. From power plants, airports and
large manufacturing facilities to the high
rise building that houses the activities
of a myriad of different businesses;
data is crucial to their day-to-day
operation. However, about 6 per cent of
infrastructure failures in data centres are
related to fire. Business continuity and
disaster recovery plans therefore often
originate from a corporate data centre
position since an incident here has such
far-reaching consequences. Central to
this is the provision of effective safety
and security. In a data centre context,
security is primarily focused on people
and protection of the integrity and
privacy of data. However, physical
security measures are also crucial, as is
fire safety, if that data is to be protected
from both external and internal threats.
The prime concern in protecting
data is ensuring business continuity and
providing a robust disaster recovery
plan, which will enable a quick and
efficient return to normal operations
in the event of an incident. Companies
rely on their information systems to
run operations. If a system becomes
unavailable, company operations
may be impaired or stop completely,
bringing business to a standstill.
According to latest studies the average
loss of a data centre due to downtime
is approximately $7,300 per minute or
$610,000 for one downtime event. It is
therefore necessary to provide a reliable
infrastructure for data centre operations
in order to minimize any chance of
disruption. Information security is also
a concern, and for this reason a data
centre has to offer an environment that
minimizes the chances of a security
breach.
Perfect System Interaction
The most important objective in a
data centre is maximum availability
(99.995% per year). Simply put, the
central task of a fire safety system is
to keep the business functioning, even
in the event of a fire. Early detection
plays an integral part since the earlier
a fire can be detected, the earlier the
operators can be notified of the event
and the earlier the required technical
and organisational measures can be
initiated. Furthermore, analyses
show that a major cause of fire
safety failure is the interface between
detection, alarming, control and
extinguishing. For this reason, the
different elements of a system need to
effectively integrate and communicate
to optimise performance.
Detection is Crucial
Data centres provide their own specific
challenges in fire safety terms. Heavy
power loads or a defective component in
data centre equipment can quickly lead
to overheating or a short circuit.
A typical fire will start slowly with a long
period of overheating and smoldering
before erupting into flames. To detect
overheating and avoid the onset of
flames, very early smoke detection is
required. If smoke is significantly diluted
by high ventilation - a characteristic
of data centre environments where
high air flows are used to cool the
servers - aspirating smoke detection
(ASD) will provide the earliest possible
warning, even when the smoke is barely
discernible to people. Air samples
are continuously taken at the danger
spots, usually in the circular airflow as
well as among the server racks, and
carried to the sampling device. As
soon as smoke particles are detected
by the air samp \