[Outages-discussion] [outages] Equinix CH1 Overheating

Mon Jan 15 15:24:58 EST 2024

In a former life, I was a professional firefighter/paramedic (retired in 2014 – IAFF L740). Why do I mention this? As a Ladder Company officer, one of my responsibilities was to ensure smoke, heat, and other byproducts of combustion were removed from the burning building in the most efficient manner – usually coordinated with the engine companies moving attack lines in place. We most often used a combination of vertical ventilation (since heat rises) with assistance of positive pressure and negative pressure ventilation fans (gas powered or electric). Why does this matter:

Perhaps the overheating center can be stabilized using these methods until a permanent repair can be made. I can tell you it is very effective and will remove the vast majority of the heat above ambient temp in a VERY short time period.

Just my $0.02 – your mileage may vary

Aaron D. Osgood

Streamline Communications L.L.C

274 E. Eau Gallie Blvd. #332
Indian Harbour Beach, FL 32937

OFFICE: 207-518-8455
MOBILE: 207-831-5829

AOsgood at Streamline-Solutions.net<mailto:AOsgood at Streamline-Solutions.net>
www.Streamline-Solutions.net<http://www.streamline-solutions.net/>

Introducing Efficiency to Business since 1986

From: Outages-discussion <outages-discussion-bounces at outages.org> On Behalf Of David Eddleman via Outages-discussion
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2024 15:08
To: outages-discussion at outages.org
Subject: Re: [Outages-discussion] [outages] Equinix CH1 Overheating

"Reuse the ducting" doesn't work well. The cold air has to be blown to specific rows for the datacenter to work. Remember hot row, cold row. Racks of servers make great windbreaks since they're giant blocks, blocking any blowing air, so the cold air has to come in via the cold row ducting to be effective. Simply opening the doors and bringing fans in only slightly reduces the ambient temperatures, but it doesn't get cold air where it needs to go, as heat simply flows in the direction of least resistance to fill a void. Plus depending upon the failure within the chiller system the whole system may shut down to prevent the system from eating itself during a malfunction. Even though the heat exchanger isn't working, the blower motors may have a physical disconnect in the event of said event. Residential HVAC systems have safeties that can disconnect the whole system in the event condensation drains are clogged, for example.

Datacenters in Greenland have other problems as well, despite being in an arctic environment for many parts of the year. Snow is actually a fantastic insulator, so you still need HVAC even when the environment is seriously cold outside. You need a way to pump cold air in and hot air out.

On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 1:38 PM Josh Luthman via Outages-discussion <outages-discussion at outages.org<mailto:outages-discussion at outages.org>> wrote:
Fans?  Reuse the ducting?

On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 2:36 PM Sabri Berisha via Outages-discussion <outages-discussion at outages.org<mailto:outages-discussion at outages.org>> wrote:
[moved to -discussion]

Hi,

At a previous life, I worked at a place where we had similar issue, in wintertime, in an SLC datacenter. I floated that idea as well: open the damned thing up, and let the outside air do it's thing.

Our local DC guys told us that this would be a very bad idea as it would be difficult to get uniform air temperature: one area would still be very warm, another area might be too cold (the operating temperature of a lot of gear also has lower limits).

Thanks,

Sabri

----- On Jan 14, 2024, at 7:44 PM, J. Hellenthal via Outages <outages at outages.org<mailto:outages at outages.org>> wrote:
Damn tear the fricken roof off!!!
Not the whole damn thing you psychos just small redirected sections to push in a wanted direction. If needed active your own equipment first !
--
 J. Hellenthal

The fact that there's a highway to Hell but only a stairway to Heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic volume.

On Jan 14, 2024, at 21:21, Ross Tajvar via Outages <outages at outages.org<mailto:outages at outages.org>> wrote:
They tried that:
IBX Critical Facility Engineers have deployed all available floor fans, opened all available doors and have engaged local rental company to source additional fans and portable spot coolers.

On Sun, Jan 14, 2024 at 10:19 PM Jay Ashworth via Outages <outages at outages.org<mailto:outages at outages.org>> wrote:
Open the doors?

On January 14, 2024 9:52:24 PM EST, Mike Hammett via Outages <outages at outages.org<mailto:outages at outages.org>> wrote:
IBX: CH1
IBX Address: 350 E Cermak Rd, Chicago, 60616
Number: INC0025932
Date and Time of Occurrence: 2024-01-14 08:20:49 Site Local Time

To view the incident and its updates, please use Service Insight.
New update on Incident INC0025932: Equinix IBX Site Staff reports that temperatures have stabilized with an average temperature of 120 F degrees. One chiller is now fully operational, and another chiller is online but operating at reduced capacity. Equinix IBX Critical Facility Engineers continue to work on restoring the required 4-out-of-6 chillers to return cooling back to normal operations. Portable chillers are currently enroute with an estimated arrival time of 21:00 Site Local Time. Upon arrival, IBX Critical Facility Engineers and our vendor partner will work diligently to get the portable chillers online as quickly as possible. We will send another update once the portable chillers are operational.

If not already implemented, Equinix site staff highly recommends that customers power down non-essential loads within the data center and/or transfer those operations to backup sites to assist with efforts at lowering the temperature within the facility.

The severe weather in the Chicago area, contributing to the initial failure, continues to hamper efforts at resolution, but our teams are working diligently to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. IBX Critical Facility Engineers continue to supply outside air to decrease the collocation area's temperature, and all fans have been deployed to support cooling the IBX.
• Service Offering: CH1 - Location - Floor
• Affected Assets: 05
• Asset Condition: Temperature above operating range
• Situation status: Under investigation

The next update will be provided in approximately 30 minutes or earlier if available.

-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions<http://www.ics-il.com/>

Midwest Internet Exchange

The Brothers WISP
<https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL>
________________________________
From: "Mike Hammett via Outages" <outages at outages.org>
To: "outages" <outages at outages.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2024 2:04:51 PM
Subject: [outages] Equinix CH1 Overheating
Equinix CH1 is overheating due to some chiller failures. The vendor is on-site troubleshooting. Ambient temperature is currently 28 degrees higher than normal.

-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions

Midwest Internet Exchange

The Brothers WISP

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