The New South Wales government is discussing ways to use new data centres in Silverwater and Unanderra to enhance government services.
ICT leaders from industry and government met in Sydney today to talk about delivering private cloud services through the data centres. Representatives from more than 50 local and international companies were in attendance.
“The new centres have allowed us to create a shared pool of ICT systems and infrastructure to provide services for government agencies, and we are currently in the process of transitioning services between the older agency-based legacy systems to the new whole-of-government facilities,” said Minister of Finance and Services Andrew Constance.
“The new data centres have the capability and capacity for private providers to deliver services and programs to agencies through a private government cloud.”
He said the cloud would act as a “marketplace” for government agencies to buy cloud services from existing shared services and other third parties.
NSW Health, the departments of Education and Communities, Corrective Services and Finance and Services have already begun using the new data centres. More agencies will join over the next 12 months, the NSW government said.
The cloud marketplace will provide opportunities for industry vendors big and small, said Constance.
“As services are delivered through a central location, economies of scale aren’t such a big issue which means smaller locally based specialist companies are able to remain competitive,” he said.
Last month, the NSW government unveiled a new ICT policy designed to help government agencies with technology investments and planning decisions.
The policy included reforms for information management, data centres, corporate and shared services.
Adam Bender covers telco and enterprise tech issues for Computerworld and is the author of dystopian sci-fi novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall. Follow him on Twitter: @WatchAdam
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