North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Fire protection in ISPs and collocation facilities

  • From: Howard C. Berkowitz
  • Date: Sun Nov 05 15:05:31 2000

At 5:56 PM -0800 11/4/2000, Sean Donelan wrote:
But back to my original question.  What is the real fire risk for
ISPs and collocation operators.  Is it burned buttered popcorn in the
microwave setting off the FM-200 system?  Is it home-made computers?
Is it the Emergency Power Off switch?

State Farm Insurance has started a project to change the National Electrical
Code for computer rooms and the requirement for an EPO switch.  Is this
something other ISPs and collocation providers would be interested in
seeing changed?  If so, we need to collect data and evidence to support
the change.
Perhaps it's worth observing that fire is but one of the classic Elemental Forces, and I've personally had far more problems with water than with fire. In my experiences, the water came from firefighting elsewhere in the building, but several instances of CO flooding and the like have been mentioned in recent posts--New Rochelle (?) AT&T vs. Verizon?

While I doubt it's practical to develop exhaustive water protection measures to guard against large-scale flooding, unless there's a move to convert surplus submarines to colo centers, I'd like to see the fire protection code be more exhaustive about diverting water away from unaffected faciities.