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Fire declared in OVH SBG2 datacentre building

travaux.ovh.net

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Re: Fire declared in OVH SBG2 datacentre building

#601
post #218
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The buildings are VERY close to one another. https://cdn.baxtel.com/data-center/ovh-strasbourg-campus/pho...

That seems, uh, problematic.

Why? They aren't making any sort guarantees with those locations, those aren't advertised as separated fault zones. Those buildings are meant as expansions for existing site.

Re: Fire declared in OVH SBG2 datacentre building

#602
post #562

Interesting. I wonder if the cladding was a major problem here? It looks like it has all burnt out and could have had the fire spread extremely rapidly on the outside.

The cladding was metal so very unlikely it contributed to the fire spreading.

ACM was the reason the grenfell disaster happened in the UK.

Re: Fire declared in OVH SBG2 datacentre building

#603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love hearing stories from "old" Walmart. I was a Walmartian from 2017 to 2019, and I still miss my co-workers. (Shout-out to the Mobile Client team.) Some interesting facts to know for those who don't dig into it. Walmart: - has 80+ internal apps, mostly variants but still unique - runs k8s inside of Distribution Centers - maintains a fleet of >180k mobile devices in the US alone - has a half-dozen data centers in…

> has a half-dozen data centers in the US Wow, that's a hell of a change! When I left in 2009, there were exactly two datacenters: NDC and EDC. Not surprising really. From where I was sitting, the best era was definitely 1997-2004 or so. ISD really went down hill, pretty quickly, in my last five years there, for many different reasons.

Yeah, they opened up SDC, and added several "zones" as data centers as well.

Re: Fire declared in OVH SBG2 datacentre building

#604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has a half-dozen data centers in the US Wow, that's a hell of a change! When I left in 2009, there were exactly two datacenters: NDC and EDC. Not surprising really. From where I was sitting, the best era was definitely 1997-2004 or so. ISD really went down hill, pretty quickly, in my last five years there, for many different reasons.

Yeah, they opened up SDC, and added several "zones" as data centers as well.

Neat! Where did they build SDC?

Re: Fire declared in OVH SBG2 datacentre building

#605
post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hetzner has storage boxes and auto snapshots. so even if someone deletes the backups remotely there are still snapshots which they can't get unless they have control panel access.

My threat model is someone that would have full access to my computer without me knowing. So they could over time get access to passwords, modify my OS to MITM yubikeys... Over cautious really likely, but that doesnt cost me much more

> someone that would have full access to my computer without me knowing

What's most relevant, in your case, would you say? Evil maiden attack, or browser zero day, or spear phishing? An insider? Or something else?

(And how did you arrive at that threat model, if i may ask)

Re: Fire declared in OVH SBG2 datacentre building

#606
post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cladding was metal so very unlikely it contributed to the fire spreading.

ACM was the reason the grenfell disaster happened in the UK.

“ACM” is a plastic sheet with aluminum skins. It would be plain idiotic to cover your DC in that (and residences too, but I digress).

You can see from pictures of the OVH fire aftermath that the outer plates have melted holes in them characteristic of metal.

Re: Fire declared in OVH SBG2 datacentre building

#608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NCR/Walmart relationship was fairly strained during my tenure. Given the sheer number of stores/sites that Walmart had and NCR's own problems, it was not always possible to provide the quality of service people might expect, especially with a smile. From a FE perspective, working on networking gear at Walmart meant that you were out at 11pm at night (typically after working 10-11 hours already and spending an hou…

> The NCR/Walmart relationship was fairly strained ... Definitely. (: I didn't hold it against the hands on workers like yourself. Even (and perhaps especially) back then, WalMart was a challenging, difficult and aggressive partner. > working on networking gear at Walmart meant that you were out at 11pm at night That sounds about right; the scheduling I was directly aware of was very fast paced. Our Network Engineeri…

> Sometimes I imagine writing a book about this

FWIW, my brain was going "book! book! book! book! book!" back at the top-level comment, and the beeper may have got slightly overloaded and broke as I continued reading. :)

Yes please.

As a sidenote, the story about "the CEO vs the architects" was very fascinating: the CEO could see the end-to-end real-world value of what you'd built, but the architects couldn't make everything align. In a sense the CEO was more flexible than the architects, despite the fact that stereotypes might suggest the opposite being more presumable.

Also, the sentiment about your unusual methodology exceeding current best practice makes me wonder whether you achieved so-called "environmental enlightenment" - where everything clicks and just works and makes everyone who touches the system a 5x developer - or whether the environment simply had to just work really really well. Chances are the former is what everyone wishes they'll find one day, while the latter (incredibly complex upstream demands that are not going to go away anytime soon and which require you to simply _deliver_) definitely seems like the likelier explanation for why the system worked, regardless of the language it was written in - it was the product of a set of requirements that would not accept anything else.

Hmm. Now I think about that a bit and try and apply it to "but why is current best practice worse", I was musing the other day about how a lot of non-technical environments don't apply tech in smart ways to increase their efficiency, because their fundamental lack of understanding in technology means they go to a solutions provider, get told "this will cost $x,xxx,xxx", don't haggle because they basically _can't_, and of course don't implement the tech. I wonder if the ubiquitification (that seems to be a word) of so-called "best practices" in an area doesn't function in a similar way, where lack of general awareness/understanding/visibility in an area means methodology and "practices" (best or not) aren't bikeshed to death, and you can just innovate. (Hmm, but then I start wondering about how highly technically competent groups get overtaken by others... I think I'll stop now...)

Re: Fire declared in OVH SBG2 datacentre building

#609
post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My threat model is someone that would have full access to my computer without me knowing. So they could over time get access to passwords, modify my OS to MITM yubikeys... Over cautious really likely, but that doesnt cost me much more

> someone that would have full access to my computer without me knowing What's most relevant, in your case, would you say? Evil maiden attack, or browser zero day, or spear phishing? An insider? Or something else? (And how did you arrive at that threat model, if i may ask)

Browser zero day or some kind of malicious linux package that gets distributed mostly. Don't think i've a profile that would make people bother to do physical attacks.

Re: Fire declared in OVH SBG2 datacentre building

#610
post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone that would have full access to my computer without me knowing What's most relevant, in your case, would you say? Evil maiden attack, or browser zero day, or spear phishing? An insider? Or something else? (And how did you arrive at that threat model, if i may ask)

Browser zero day or some kind of malicious linux package that gets distributed mostly. Don't think i've a profile that would make people bother to do physical attacks.

Ok. Me too, plus malicious software dependences
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