Blix Solutions AS

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Data-centre fire protection

Blix Solutions AS, a Norwegian company with a strong focus on sustainability, takes great pride in ensuring that their operations are environmentally responsible. Their ambition is to deliver services that are CO2-neutral – and wherever possible, even CO2-negative. Therefore, Inergen® was the natural choice as their fire extinguishing solution.

Norwegian company Blix Solutions AS views sustainability and being environmentally friendly as of great importance. That’s why they do their utmost to ensure their services are CO2-neutral or even CO2-negative.

In 2019, they bought a property and built their own data centre facility with servers that were specially designed for their needs. The facility features many innovative solutions, such as solar-powered networking equipment and recycling waste heat from the data centre to provide heat for the ventilation system of their neighbours in the same building.

It is obviously important for Blix Solutions AS to protect their infrastructure, customer data and related assets. As a data centre, they handle an enormous amount of data flowing in and out of the facility. With such great responsibility, there is always a fear of fire.

Being able to detect and extinguish potential fires rapidly is of crucial importance to prevent both a direct catastrophe for the facility and the imminent danger of the fire spreading and causing further damage. This is also important for their customers.

Inergen i Københavns Lufthavn Blix Solutions AS

“The fact that Inergen is a non-toxic as well as cost-effective and sustainable solution, suits us down to the ground, as the idea of releasing toxic gases into the world does not sit well with our values.”

Blix Solutions AS
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A flexible system required

The reason why Blix Solutions AS chose a Fire Eater fire extinguishing system was that INERGEN is a cost-effective and sustainable solution. The fact that it is non-toxic also helped, as the idea of releasing toxic gases into the world does not match up with their values.

They also needed a solution that ensured their electrical equipment would not be damaged by the extinguishing method (as would be the case with water, for example). Blix Solutions AS received a live demonstration of the system, which was easy to integrate with their own in-house developed Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) system.

A green choice

The fact that the Inergen fire suppression system does not cause any damage to equipment or people makes it an easy choice.

Electrical equipment in general is easily destroyed by both liquids and heat, so the use of gas or lack of oxygen is the best way to fight fires in these environments.

Data centres are quite often large facilities. And having a non-toxic gas to extinguish any fire is an obvious advantage in a situation like a data centre.

Being eco-lighthouse certified, sustainability is very important to Blix Solutions AS, and they maintain a tight focus in this respect.

They are future-oriented too, and there is no future without taking care of the environment. Inergen’s inherent environment-friendliness consequently played a significant role in Blix Solutions AS choosing this solution.

The need for sustainable service providers is important for both customers and their partners, as it may determine future decisions.

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A future-proof system

Blix Solutions AS’ data centre is growing and the company is confident that the INERGEN Fire Eater system will keep their extensive network of data storage secure. They are confident, in other words, that the Blix Data Centre is built for the future, whatever the future might bring.

In addition to having a future-proof system, Blix Solutions AS, as an agile company with a small but growing staff, felt it important to have as few moving parts as possible in the data centre. This would also give customers added assurance that the system is secure.

Technical equipment, especially HDD, is delicate and can be damaged by vibration, powerful sound waves and so on. To avoid this, Fire Eater’s specially designed silencers may be added to Fire Eater Inergen nozzles to protect equipment that is sensitive to acoustic noise. The use of silencers on all nozzles in the data hall was thus a natural choice to ensure uptime in the event of the Inergen system being triggered.

The system itself does not require any attention from Blix Solutions’ staff during their daily work. The company has nevertheless chosen to add the system to the proactive process that their technicians perform every morning, carrying out a visual inspection and making sure the equipment is behaving as it should. The check thus becomes a part of their extremely important process, which they call “Red Light Management”.

FACT BOX

Area to be protected

49 cylinders

80L

300 Bar

Contact person, Fire Eater Norge

Thomas Bråten

thomas.braaten@hhfireeater.no

Tel.: (+47) 99 46 58 68

FACT BOX

Client

Blix Solutions AS

Location

Norway

Sector

Datacenter

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Other references

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