Datacentre strategy unveiled next week
Minister for Finance and Deregulation Lindsay Tanner will next week unveil the Federal Government's whole-of-government approach to datacentres.
Lindsay Tanner
(Credit: Minister's Office)
Speaking at CeBIT's "Future-Proofing Your Data Centre" conference in Sydney on Monday, Tanner will unveil the Federal Government's strategy, according to CeBIT organisers.
Sir Peter Gershon had said in his report on the state of the Federal Government's IT that a whole-of-government approach to datacentres was required to prevent the government being forced into a series of ad-hoc investments over the next 15 years. Such ad-hoc investments could cost the taxpayer $1 billion more than it should, according to Gershon.
Following the report's recommendation, government consulted with industry, completing a review to detail options for the strategy. The results were handed to Tanner's office earlier this year.
Most would consider datacentre consolidation (as occurring in Defence) to be key to saving money. However, Australian Government Information Management Office division manager for business improvement John Sheridan said last year that the review would consider all options from agencies operating decentralised datacentres to taking up infrastructure as a service.
Some agencies, such as Centrelink, couldn't wait for a the strategy to get off the ground. For those, Tanner set up an interim datacentre panel so they could purchase additional datacentre needs.
Canberra Data Centres, Fujitsu Australia, Global Switch Property Australia, Harbour MSP and Polaris Data Centres had all been appointed to the panel.
Purchasing from the panel officially closes on 30 March; however, according to an Australian IT report, Tanner has allowed any negotiations currently going on to continue.