NSW datacentre consolidation draws widespread interest
- 12 January, 2010 10:55
- Comments 1
Seventeen providers from a range of industries have lined up with expressions of interest to manage the NSW Government’s whole-of-government datacentre requirements.
The Expressions of Interest process, which was announced in October 2009 and closed on December 1, will see the NSW Government consolidate it datacentre facilities from 130 to just two.
The list of prospective tenderers includes outsourcing and integration agencies, CSC, Fujitsu and Datacom, along with specialised datacentre providers, Equinix, Canberra Data Centres, Enterprise Data Corporation and Global Switch Property. Several telecom operators, property groups and IT vendors feature in the mix including Oracle, Sun, Macquarie Telecom, Tier 5 and Leighton Contractors. Financial agencies, Macquarie Capital and Gresham Rabo Management, have also applied.
According to tender documents, the state government aims to reduce operational costs while improving datacentre security, utilisation, reliability and environmental efficiency. Lead agencies for the tender are the Department of Education and the Department of Health.
The project includes provisioning, operation and maintenance of two robust and scaleable datacentres (Tier 2 and Tier 3 level) to cater to up to 3MW of the Government’s initial ICT load. It covers Central West, Far West, Hunter, Illawarra, Mid North Coast, Murray, Murrumbidgee, Northern, North Western, Richmond Tweed, South Eastern and Sydney.
The tender has been applauded by industry pundits, who claim it demonstrates the Government’s clear and strategic long-term ICT agenda. It follows a review of 55 datacentre facilities across 32 agencies back in 2008.
A shortlist of providers is expected to be compiled this quarter, followed by a formal request for tender. The datacentre facilities are due to be operational by 2011.
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Comments
Anonymous
Costs + People + Services = Outsourcing is a very bad idea
Let's take costs first. Outsourcing is very expensive to start with. I can hear the prospective vendors scrambling like rats from here to get a taste. Phone calls a many, lunches, dinners and deals. However, how long will it be, once the 10 year contract is in place, before the successful vendor ramps up its costs knowing it cannot be removed for a long time? Vendors cannot predict IT Infrastructure costs into the future and therefore will not agree to an incremental rise in charges over the period. Case in point was the 90% increase in outsourcing costs in its FIRST YEAR during the Victorian Kennett days when an IT services mistake was realised and bought back in-house. Taxpayers will be forking out big time to re-instate personnel, equipment and systems once the vendor/NSW Government relationship breaks down. IF this must go ahead, at the very least ensure an Australian company gets it.
Taxpayers can expect Service implementations to be slower due to an extra leg in the support chain. As it stands, business gets a request, the IT department services the request. Now it will have to go from the business to the local IT department out to the vendor, get actioned, QA'd, possible bounceback, QA'd, back to local IT, to business and out to the taxpayer as a new service.
People First - A NSW Government initiative. What a laugh. This initiative will "create" 500 jobs? Yes, for the vendor, not the current workforce that are in the roles presently. They will disappear replaced by much higher paid resources. More government "spin". Outsourced services and equipment are "maintained" by a third party hence the pride of having a 99.99 uptime no longer exists for the coal face IT people of the organisation.
This "initiative" arrives under the guise of "collaboration" and spruikes energy and cost reduction. Energy reduction is already a major concern in existing data centres and being met. Cost reduction??? You've got to be kidding... where? Outsourcing is a very bad idea.
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