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Did OVH claim that SBG1 and SBG2 were isolated failure domains? Despite them just being different rooms in the same building?

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They are different physical buildings. OVH does not generally claim anything regarding AZ or distance. SBG1, 2, 3, etc is just denoting the building your server is in - they are not like AWS style AZ or similar, quite literally just building addresses.

I have used them for years and I don't believe they've ever said anything like deploy in both SBG1 and SBG2 for safety or availability, because you don't get that choice.

When you provision a machine (eg via API) they tell you "SBG 5 min, LON 5 min, BHS 72h" and you pick SBG and get assigned first-available. There is no "I want to be in SBG4" generally.

In fact, OVH themselves host e.g. backups of SBG in RBX.

They're separate buildings, with separate power systems, just standing next to another. Next to SBG2 are also SBG3 and SBG4.

Those buildings weren't quite as far apart as they should have been if a fire in one requires all 4 of the others to be turned off...

Not disagreeing with you but the firefighters probably shut down all power onsite as soon as they arrived.

Apparently hey are more like (temporary) extensions of the main building than separate DCs.

Apparently they are more like (temporary) extensions of the main building than separate DCs.

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