Utrecht University (UU) will remain closed on Friday due to a fire that has been raging in a data center in Almere since Thursday morning. This causes problems with the university’s network, applications and websites.
Among other things, the access passes for university buildings do not work, meaning that employees and students cannot enter their work and study areas. The outage also has an “impact on login processes”, thus the UU. The disabled toilets in some buildings were closed on Thursday due to the problems.
It was not yet necessary to close the university buildings on Thursday, because many employees had already “checked in” to the building before the outage started, according to the university. “Access to buildings will expire on a new day. This cannot be restored before the weekend.”
Online education is also canceled on Fridays because the systems do not work optimally. The university even asks its students and employees not to do anything on the UU systems, to limit the pressure on them “while we work on recovery”. PhD defenses, inaugural lectures and graduation ceremonies will take place in the academy building on Friday.
In addition to Utrecht University, general practices, transport company TransDev and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) are also experiencing disruptions due to the fire. NOS reports. This occurred around nine o’clock in the morning in the technical room of the NorthC Data Center, director Alexandra Schless told NOS.
Doors and windows closed
According to the director, no servers or data carriers are on fire, but part of the power supply is. The power supply was switched off by order of the fire brigade, causing the equipment in the data center to no longer work.
The fire is still not under control at the beginning of the evening, reports the Flevoland Safety Region. Extinguishing the fire can take hours. Fire brigade units from Hilversum, Huizen, Amsterdam and Schiphol are involved in the extinguishing work.
Several NL Alerts have been sent in the Almere area due to the smoke. Local residents are advised to keep doors and windows closed and turn off ventilation systems. The fire brigade has not yet measured high levels of harmful substances in the air.