Data Center Earthquake Protection

Data Center Earthquake Protection

Earthquake damage can be devastating to a data center for many reasons. The loss of uptime can be financially crippling. If an earthquake occurs and your data center is unprotected, the physical damage to servers and IT equipment can be catastrophic. That physical financial loss combined with the loss of uptime could mean the loss of your business entirely. If your data center is located in an area of moderate to high seismic activity, then you should take precaution. There are different measures to preemptively utilize to help protect your data center from data center earthquake damage.

Instor has solutions to protect your data center during an earthquake. Make seismic planning and design an integral part of your next data center buildout, or let us help you during a repopulation phase of a current data center.

Cabinet Earthquake Mitigation Solutions

The most commonly used method of earthquake protection is rigid bolting the data center equipment racks directly into the slab. If your data center is located in an area at risk for seismic activity, this is the minimal method that should be used to protect your data center. Cabinet bolting is an effective safeguard that cabinets remain in place in the event of an earthquake. This method physically protects personnel that are working within a data center during an earthquake as the racks have less risk of falling over on a person. However, the seismic bolt down of racks might not protect IT equipment. While the data center equipment racks remain bolted to the slab during the earthquake, they vibrate along with the shaking ground. These dangerous vibrations can rattle and shake equipment causing costly damages, even if the equipment remains in place with the rigid bolting. There are other earthquake mitigation options to help protect IT equipment as well as data center personnel in the event of an earthquake.

Base Isolation Solutions

Instor’s team of experts works to bring the latest base isolation products to data centers and customers to protect equipment from data center earthquake damage.

Instor provides ISO-Base™ platforms by Worksafe Technologies as an earthquake mitigation solution for your data center. The ISO-Base ™ uses base isolation technology to decouple the damaging ground vibrations with the substructure during an earthquake. Base isolation has been a preferred method used for many years to protect buildings and bridges from earthquake damage.

Iso-Base Earthquake Base IsolationThe ISO-Base™ uses Worksafe Technologies patented Ball-n-Cone™ design. The Ball-n-Cone™ design uses two cones, both 8” in diameter, that have a ball bearing placed between them. This design is utilized between two load bearing plates. During resting position, a data center equipment rack stays in position. In the event of an earthquake, the upper load bearing plate will be displaced. The ball bearing immediately supports the weight of the rack using the opposing slopes of the two cones, allowing the rack to steadily glide above the damaging ground vibrations in any direction within an 8 ½ “diameter, while staying safely steady and undisturbed, on the top load bearing plate. Once the ground has stopped shaking, the ISO-Base uses gravity. The ball bearing rolls down the lower cone, allowing the server rack to gently glide the rack down between the slopes of the two cones, until the two load bearing plates return to resting position.