Datacom has announced plans to build a new tier 3 data centre in Hamilton following the success of its bid to be a preferred supplier of cloud and data centre services to the New Zealand Government.
The contract, signed yesterday, is for a period of 10 years with an optional 5 year extension. This initiative is part of a cross-government ICT programme led by the Department of Internal Affairs to reduce costs and improve the effectiveness of government.
Sydney-based Datacom Group CEO Jonathan Ladd said Datacom is continuing to invest in new cloud infrastructure right across the region.
“With Australia and particularly New Zealand recognised as high growth markets for cloud services, Datacom is continuing to invest significantly in infrastructure across the region, including expanding its Sydney cloud platform and establishing nodes in Melbourne and Brisbane to meet demand,” Jonathan Ladd said.
“Datacom applauds the NZ Government’s progressive initiative in establishing the provision of infrastructure as a service to its agencies, which we believe is a world-first on this all-of-government scale for a national administration,” Jonathan Ladd said.
Peter Mersi, CEO, Department of Internal Affairs, NZ Government with Jonathan Ladd, Datacom Group CEO and Steve Matheson Datacom Group COO.
Technology to operate Datacom’s cloud services is sourced from Cisco, EMC, HP, IBM, Microsoft, NetApp, Symantec and VMware.
Datacom’s New Zealand CEO Greg Davidson said a standalone cloud computing platform, Datacom Cloud Services for Government, will be available within 90 days.
Storage and computer services will be provided in a range of price, performance, and availability tiers to meet varying agency requirements. An online portal will provide agencies with ‘a single pane of glass’ to view, provision and manage the services provided. The portal will be secured using the NZ Government’s igovt identity verification service.
The Datacom Cloud Services for Government computing platform is based on the expertise gained by Datacom’s operation of its established commercial cloud platform in New Zealand, running across three of its data centres in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
This commercial platform now provides cloud services to more than 100 clients via 1,500 machines, with over one petabyte of storage under management. These numbers are growing at 15 per cent per month.
To ensure ongoing data centre capacity Datacom will build a new tier-3 data centre in Hamilton on the North Island and extend existing cloud and data centre infrastructure in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Work on the new data centre has commenced and it will open in early 2013.
Datacom expects the very low earthquake risk profile of Hamilton to make that location an attractive site for both NZ government and commercial organisations to house IT systems.
Design consultants for the new data centre in Hamilton will be Beca Carter with construction services being provided by Fletcher Building, forming the same team that delivered Datacom’s successful Auckland tier-3+ facility, commissioned 2 years ago as NZ’s most energy-efficient data centre.
“Datacom’s commitment to providing the benefits of technology advances to its clients through its early and proven investment in cloud computing now enables us to offer infrastructure as a service to all NZ Government agencies,” Greg Davidson said.
“Our selection is highly significant for Datacom and will allow us to bring the benefits of efficient cloud computing to many public sector organisations. The NZ Government’s embrace of this innovative technology paradigm will further spur its adoption across the country, which can only be good for productivity and the economy.”
Datacom is a New Zealand owned IT infrastructure, software and outsourcing services company employing over 3,500 staff across New Zealand, Australia and Asia. Revenues in the last financial year ended 31/3/11 exceeded NZ$725m.