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In the course of doing business, it’s the company’s responsibility to protect its workers, customers, vendors, and business partners. This lesson considers some of the issues that affect safety, along with best practices and guidelines for preventing injuries and damage to equipment.
IT personnel spend a great deal of time dealing with electrical devices. Therefore, electrical safety should be stressed in all procedures. In this section, we’ll look at key issues involved with electrical safety, relevant to preventing injuries and for preventing damage to computer equipment.
Almost every network-related piece of equipment uses electricity. And as you probably already know, electricity can harm you if you don’t take the proper precautions.
Electricity flows through a wire because it has no other choice; it has to flow somewhere, and the path along the wire is the only option. Given a choice, electricity will prefer flowing to the ground, though. Grounding is the electrical term for providing a path for an electrical charge to follow to return to earth.
Electricity takes the path of least resistance as it travels through any conduit. Water is a path of very little resistance, for example. When a human body (which is mostly water) interrupts the flow of electricity by coming into contact with a wire that carries it, the electricity will prefer taking a route through the human’s body to the ground. The result? Electric shock to the person.
To prevent an electric shock, you need to avoid placing your body along the electrical path. At the most basic level, that means not touching live wires carrying electricity (including power cables with breaks or splits in their casing), not sticking metal tools into live AC wall outlets, and not touching capacitors with stored electrical charges.
Another principle of electricity is that it always flows from an object of lesser charge to an object of greater charge. It’s like when two bodies of water meet that have different levels; the water from the body with a higher level spills into the body with the lower level until their levels are equalized.
Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is the technical term for what happens whenever two objects of dissimilar electrical charge come in contact. You may have experienced this firsthand by walking across a carpeted floor wearing wool socks and then touching another person. Ouch! They receive a shock. That’s because you are the object of greater charge, and the electricity rushes from you to them all at once when you touch. While the amount of ESD generated doing that may create a shock they can feel, it’s not enough to harm them. However, even that small amount—and actually a much smaller amount than a human can feel—is enough to seriously damage sensitive computer parts.
This is exactly why we ground both ourselves and the equipment—to prevent ESD damage. Always use mats and straps to prevent damage when working with computing equipment.
While protecting yourself from electrical injury is very important, it’s not the only safety issue you’ve got to take into consideration. Other types of injuries can also occur, ranging from a simple pulled muscle to a more serious incident requiring a trip to the hospital. The following topics discuss some safety issues to be aware of when installing or moving equipment.
Often when a piece of equipment is being installed, the time pressures involved and the rush to get things done can lead to improper lifting.
There is a reason so many devices come “rack ready.” Racks not only make for a neat and clean server room or closet, but when combined with proper cable management and environmental control, they provide an environment that allows the devices to breathe and stay cool.
Computing equipment and infrastructure devices like routers and switches all generate heat as they operate, and that heat has to be dissipated somehow. Excessive heat can make chips overheat, shutting down the system. That’s why server rooms are often equipped with powerful air conditioning units and raised floors.
Humidity can also be an issue. High humidity can lead to corrosion on metal connectors, but low humidity encourages static electricity, which can damage equipment by shocking it.
As you learned earlier in this challenge, hot aisle/cold aisle design involves lining up racks in alternating rows with cold air intakes facing one way and hot air exhausts facing the other. The rows composed of rack fronts are called cold aisles. Typically, cold aisles face air conditioner output ducts. The rows the heated exhausts pour into are called hot aisles and face air conditioner return ducts. Moreover, all of the racks and the equipment they hold should never be on the floor. There should be a raised floor to provide protection against water. See the example in the image below.
Once your racks are placed, you can begin loading equipment into them. Before you start loading, make an inventory of all the equipment to be racked and strategically choose each item’s location. Draw a diagram of the overall plan.
The first step in using tool safely is to make sure you’re properly grounded. Besides practicing tool safety for your own protection, you should do so to protect equipment. The table below has some specific guidelines to follow.
| Guideline | Description |
|---|---|
| Guidelines for protecting yourself when working inside a PC case or in a server rack |
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| Guidelines for protecting equipment |
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In the course of installing, servicing, and repairing equipment, you’ll come in contact with many different types of materials. Some are safer than others. You can get all the information you need regarding the safe handling of materials by reviewing the material safety data sheet (MSDS).
Any type of chemical, equipment, or supply that has the potential to harm the environment or people must have an MSDS associated with it. These are traditionally created by the manufacturer and describe the boiling point, melting point, flash point, and potential health risks. You can obtain them from the manufacturer or from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Every organization should be prepared for emergencies of all types. Here are some of the top considerations in emergency preparedness.
Planning for emergencies can start with the layout of the facility. The following are some key considerations:
All facilities should have a plan that identifies the escape route in the event of a fire, an active shooter, or some other natural disaster or criminal threat. There should be a complete facility map showing the escape route for each section of the building, keeping in mind that it’s better to use multiple exits to move people out quickly. These diagrams should be placed in all areas.
All escape routes on the map should have the following characteristics:
Door systems that have electronic locks may lose power during a fire. When they do, they may lock automatically (fail close) or unlock automatically (fail open). While fail-close settings may enhance security during an electrical outage, you should consider the effect they will have during an evacuation and take steps to ensure that everyone can get out of the building when the time comes.
All facilities should be equipped with a system to alert all employees when a fire or any other type of emergency occurs. It might be advisable to connect the facility to the Emergency Alert System (EAS), which is a national warning system in the United States. One of the functions of this system is to alert the public of local weather emergencies such as tornadoes and flash floods. EAS messages are transmitted via AM and FM radio, broadcast television, cable television, and the Land Mobile Radio Service as well as very high frequency (VHF), ultra high frequency (UHF), and fiber-optic service (FiOS) wireline video providers.
While fire extinguishers are important and should be placed throughout a facility, when large numbers of computing devices are present, it is worth the money to protect them with a fire-suppression system.
Today, many companies use a fire-suppressant such as halon. Halon is known as a clean agent; it’s an electrically non-conducting fire extinguisher that does not leave a residue upon evaporation. Leaving no residue means not rendering expensive networking equipment inoperative as water can do if released in a data center. It’s remarkably safe for human exposure, meaning that it won’t poison living things, and it will allow you to leave the area safely, returning only after the fire department gives the all clear. However, halon production is no longer legal because of environmental concerns, so when a halon-based system is discharged, purchasing more halon with which to recharge it may be difficult or expensive.
Source: This content and supplemental material has been adapted from CompTIA Network+ Study Guide: Exam N10-007, 4th Edition. Source Lammle: CompTIA Network+ Study Guide: Exam N10-007, 4th Edition - Instructor Companion Site (wiley.com)
