Perth iX data centre in fire scare

The Perth iX data centre suffered a short outage yesterday after a fire scare caused by a smouldering garden bed on one of its external walls.

The centre was manually shut down for around one hour.

Beau Quarry, director of the business at Perth iX, said the centre's Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus (VESDA) detected smoke in the data hall.

"Our network operations employees spent some time trying to determine the source of the smoke but were unable to locate a fire within the centre," Quarry said.

"Given that small amounts of smoke continued to be detected in the centre, it was determined that to safeguard employees and equipment that the centre should be manually shutdown".

A smouldering garden bed was then located and the fire brigade put it out, Quarry said.

Quarry said that once the source of the fire had been confirmed the data centre was powered back up.

The Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia had been contacted for comment as to what started the fire and whether or not it was deliberately lit.

"There was a nearby mulch fire," said media liaison officer Allen Gale.