Exactly one week ago, a fire broke out at an OVHcloud data center in Strasbourg. On Wednesday, March 10th at 12:47 AM, the SBG2 data center was completely destroyed by flames, and three surrounding data rooms went offline. In total, more than 3 .6 million websites were offline for an extended period, including those of banks, government agencies, and online retailers. The message from founder Octave Klaba was clear: activate the Disaster Recovery plan
SECURING DATA CENTERS WITH VESDA
I have followed this incident with great interest: it is one of the disaster scenarios that occasionally crosses my mind. For example, when we give data center tours to potential clients or when we are selecting a new location for expansion. You want to do everything possible to prevent such a disaster. How? By being critical in choosing the right partner in the data center landscape and reviewing the procedures and measures they take to detect issues like fire in time. An essential component, in my opinion, is VESDA (Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus): a system that scans particles in the air and can detect changes in air composition very quickly. Below is a photo of a VESDA system (the red pipes with sensors).
