U. of Penn Data Center Overheats

As data centers get warmer, the environment gets less forgiving. That lesson was learned the hard way at the University of Pennsylvania, which on Tuesday had to shut off the IT systems supporting the school’s financial, research and student services.

The University Data Center experienced “an excessive heat condition” on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian. The incident occurred when one of the two glycol pumps supporting the Data Center was accidentally switched from automatic to manual during an equipment replacement, resulted in overheating.