A major fire in the data centers of an Internet service provider in Strasbourg disrupted the services of numerous companies.
The fire broke out on Wednesday night in one of the data centers of the hosting provider OVH, the company announced. Nobody was injured in the fire – but the fire caused serious damage. The cause of the fire was initially unclear. OVH is one of the largest internet service providers in Europe.
According to company boss Octave Klaba, two of the four data centers in Strasbourg in particular were affected by the fire. OVH's servers are used by companies or government organizations to store or manage large amounts of data. According to OVH, it has around 1.5 million customers worldwide and operates, among other things, 15 data centers in Europe.
Many websites affected
The Paris cultural center Center Pompidou wrote on Twitter at noon that its website was not available due to the fire. The services of the city of Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine near Paris were also unavailable. The Belgian French and German-speaking Bar Association and French weather sites also reported problems.
Our website is currently unavailable due to the fire that occurred last night in the OVH data center in Strasbourg.
We want to express our support to the @OVHcloud_FR team, and will keep you updated.
– Center Pompidou (@CentrePompidou) March 10, 2021
Company boss Klaba wrote on Twitter early Wednesday morning that the fire had been extinguished. After the first measurements on site, the fire does not pose a threat to the population, said the local prefecture.
OVH's data centers are located in the Strasbourg industrial area of Port aux Pétroles, near the Rhine. “We are currently evaluating the impact of this incident and will communicate the progress of our analysis (…) as soon as possible with the greatest possible transparency,” the company announced.
