NSW government ramps up data centre consolidation

Two data centres will be supported by augmented cloud services

The New South Wales government’s consolidation of 130 data centres has begun in earnest with agencies already beginning the migration over to one of two new facilities.

Speaking at the Datacentre Dynamics Converged conference in Sydney, NSW Department of Finance and Services ICT strategic delivery executive director, Pedro Harris, told delegates that the Departments of Health and the Department of Education have been confirmed as anchor tenants in Silverwater.

Two new Tier III data centres have been built at Silverwater and Unanderra by Metronode and will open for business by August 2013. The facilities are designed to deliver nine megawatts of load and a power usage effectiveness of 1.3.

The project is part of the NSW government’s Data Centre Reform Strategy. All NSW government agencies will be required to move from 130 existing decentralised government data centres into the two whole-of-government purpose built facilities by 31 December 2015.

Each agency will have its own pod. Harris said that suppliers will be able to take space in the data centres as well.

“What made sense to us was to create an online marketplace for suppliers so they don’t need to spend months on tender agreements,” he said.

“Our government agencies will be able to use a service catalogue and provision services from the marketplace.”

By 2018, there will be a government data centre ecosystem which offers data-centre-as-a-service and augmented cloud to government agencies.

“It’s hard to protect 130 government data centres but we can do security more effectively when we aggregate,” Harris said.

Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU, or take part in the Computerworld conversation on LinkedIn: Computerworld Australia

Join the newsletter!

Or

Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more.

Membership is free, and your security and privacy remain protected. View our privacy policy before signing up.

Error: Please check your email address.

Tags data centre consolidationNSW GovernmentDataCentre DynamicsNSW Department of Finance and Services

Show Comments
[]