Fire at cloud provider OVH: Fire department finds serious defects

About a year ago, a fire in a data center of cloud provider OVH in Strasbourg had completely destroyed it (we reported). Now, a year later, the fire department published a report on the fire that proves serious safety deficiencies and conceptual problems.

Fireplaces let blaze get out of control

Spicy details from the local fire department’s report on the fire at cloud provider OVH have now come to light on the French website Journal Du Net. Due to the design of the data center in Strasbourg, France, not only was the fire itself noticeably accelerated, but it also made it more difficult to contain the fire.

Affected by the fire in March 2021 was the provider’s data center SBG2, which despite a quick response by the fire department could not be saved and was completely destroyed. Data center SBG1 had also been damaged in the fire, while the other two facilities, SBG3 and SBG4, had to be completely sealed off and taken offline.

The report, which has now been published, shows that there was no automated fire extinguishing system at the SBG1 center. Firefighters also had to use hydrants to extinguish the fire because access to the fire pond was blocked.

The passive cooling system used in the data center was intended to generate a natural and permanent air flow from the environment. In the process, however, the two inner courtyards of the data center even acted as fire pits, which further accelerated the fire, the fire department is quoted as saying.

Power generators without emergency stop switch

The structure of the OVH data center had also further complicated the firefighting efforts, it is added. Since the cloud provider – apparently in the best interests of the customer – placed high value on a continuous power supply including two generator levels, which should continue to fire the servers in the event of a power outage, but in the process was apparently omitted an emergency stop switch.

Thus, the power supply was only interrupted several hours after the outbreak of the fire and only upon external intervention. Even after that, the voltage of the inverters was still detectable. On arrival, the fire department found arcs more than one meter high around the outer door, which is why it was not possible to extinguish the fire with water.

According to investigations, the fire at OVH’s data center took around 18 percent of hosted IP addresses offline. Around 3.6 million websites on almost 460,000 domains are said to have been inaccessible, at least temporarily.