Students will probably be working in a data centre or have a desire to work in one.

There are no formal prerequisites for the course.

The skill and knowledge of today’s Data Centre managers and engineers has a major impact on the smooth running of a data centre facility.

The British Standards Institute lists 4133 British and European Standards relating to fire protection, construction, alarm and management. For North American, ISO/IEC and other national standards we could list just as many again. It can be bewildering to know where to start in the complex interaction of engineering disciplines encountered when putting together a viable (and legal) management plan for fire safety engineering in data centres.

After power problems, fire is the second largest cause of facilities outages in data centres, yet is the largest cause of actual outage time with the average downtime caused by fire issues currently around twenty-five hours!

This unique and original course guides you though:

•  Understanding the standards
• Designing and constructing with low fire risk
• Operating with low fire risk
• Methods of fire detection and alarm relevant to data centres
• Automatic methods of fire suppression for data centres
• Integration of systems such as fire detection, BMS, ventilation, air conditioning and power Risk assessment
• Integrating fire safety engineering into data centre management

This course draws on the most relevant standards for data centres such as EN 50600-2-5 and EN 50600-3-1 plus TIA 942, NFPA 75, BS 6266 and many others.

• Introduction to data centre fire safety:
  • The level of risk presented by fire in the datacentre
  • Different failure mechanisms in the data centre
  • Potential downtime according to risk factor
• Regulations, Codes and Standards which drive the market:
  
  • Which European and American regulations apply
  • What the data centre standards say
  • Third party approvals and certifications
• Building with low fire risk:
  
  • Fire resistance of walls, doors etc.
  • EU Construction Products Regulations, CPR, and low fire hazard cables
  • US NFPA requirements
  • Firestopping
  • Emergency lighting
  • Correct signage
  • Appropriate fire exits
  • Overpressure relief systems
  • Ventilation and smoke extract
• Fire detection and alarm:
  • Ionisation and optical smoke detectors
  • Aspirating Smoke Detection
  • Correct locations of smoke detectors
  • Dealing with enclosed aisle structures
  • Integration with building alarm systems
  • Coincident detection and integration with fire suppression systems
• Fire Suppression:
  • Manual fire extinguishers
  • NFPA and EU F Gas Regulations
  • Global Warming Potential and Ozone Depletion Potential
  • Halogenated and inert gas products
  • Hypoxic fire suppression
  • Sprinklers and water mist
  • What is recommended and what is not
• Managing with low fire risk:
  • Fire Safety Plan
  • Fire Risk Assessment
  • Maintenance
  • Inspection and audits
  • Managing flammable materials
  • Cause and effect management algorithm
  • Permit to Work and incident reports
  • Recovery plan
  • Staff Training