Steve Fairfax, president of Mtechnology initiated a high-level series of presentations on day two of the 7x24 Exchange conference in Phoenix, AZ. Steve cited his years of experience in the nuclear industry, including analysis of the Three Mile Island and Fukushima disasters, in support of major themes regarding proper maintenance of reliability systems in data centers.
Steve has previously described much of the preventive maintenance practices of the industry as unnecessary, noting that they often introduce opportunities for human error putting facilities at risk. He also outlined for a full conference hall many of the risks associated with diesel fuel due to changes in formulation, ultralow sulphur regulations, and biodiesel regulations. He said that failure to run accounted for a plurality of system failures in data centers. Steve noted that 10 sec start times added stress to generator systems and cause them to take longer to synch compared to routines that allowed longer time to start.