NSW outlines datacentre migration plans
The New South Wales Government has today revealed the cost of its datacentre deal with Metronode, while outlining its plans to migrate state agencies to the two new facilities.
(Credit: Luke Hopewell/ZDNet Australia)
The government has revealed that the deal is worth $182 million to Leighton Contractors-owned Metronode. This hefty investment will see Metronode construct two datacentres for use by the NSW Government; one situated in the Sydney suburb of Silverwater, the other in the Illawarra region.
The Silverwater datacentre will house 12,972 square metres of gross floor space, while the Illawarra centre will be 10,608 square metres.
The government will also allow the private sector to occupy space in the Metronode datacentres. Brian McGlynn, chair of the Datacentre Project Control Group for the Department of Premier and Cabinet, confirmed today that the NSW Government will have to sign off on each private-sector client that requests to occupy part of the datacentre.
He said that the process is merely a formality, as the government doesn't have a list of undesirable customers that it would be banning from the datacentre.
Metronode executives stated that any private-sector tenants that do move into the facility will be faced with rigorous physical and digital barriers between their infrastructure and government-owned infrastructure.
The government also outlined how it would move agencies into the new datacentres, announcing today that the departments of Health, Education and Corrective Services will be the anchor agencies that will move into the new facilities from launch.
The construction of the centre will take 12 months, and the government will use that time to encourage individual agencies to draw up their own migration plans, taking into account their individual infrastructure needs, as well as when their existing hosting arrangements come to a close.
The NSW Government said that it will have a clearer picture of an overall agency-migration strategy by September.
The datacentre deal has taken a long time to get off the ground, with the original expression of interest being released in 2009, asking the industry how the government could move from 130 datacentres to just two. The NSW Government said that the contract was delayed by a standard review process that came with a change of government.
Although 17 vendors tendered for the work, it wasn't until two months after the announcement deadline that the then Labor government announced the shortlisted candidates.
The contract was eventually awarded to Metronode in March this year.