NBN and the data centre: Time to update Gershon?

James Riley
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 16:39

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

CSC clearly wants to figure in the Commonwealth’s post-Gershon data centre plans, and in its broader service provisioning markets.

Though Hayward believes that for the most part software as a service-style offerings probably isn’t quite ready for the kind of primetime use that meets Government’s risk-averse needs, so-called Platform as a Service infrastructure opportunities are a different matter.

"The clear early wins in this area are going to be in infrastructure," Hayward said. "So, for example, why have every agency have its own test and development environment, when that can be made available in a shared pool, and on an as-needed basis."

"That makes a lot of sense. That’s low hanging fruit. And we think the savings – including environmental/sustainability savings – would be considerable."

Government is getting closer to formalising its forward data centre strategy, with the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) set to complete its formulations by the end of the year.

The usual suspects among large agencies look at varying stages of readiness. Centrelink signed a long-term enterprise licensing deal with virtualisation leader VMware earlier this year; Immigration (a big CSC customer) is getting quite sophisticated in their thinking on such issues following the Systems for People program; and Australian Taxation Office is already doing leading things in the space.

Vendors will get a glimpse at how AGIMO is thinking about the data centre future when it names it panel contract for suppliers of data centre services in the next two weeks.

Regardless, CSC’s Hayward says the NBN and advances in virtualisation servicers – particularly features like VMware’s vMotion, which enables applications to be easily and dynamically shifted between physical data centres on the fly – Government should tweak its Gershon-inspired roadmap to enhance its environmental deliverables.

"We should think about the optimal locations for these (data centre) facilities. Do they really need to be in Canberra, drawing power from the electricity grid – for example? Or can they be powered by gas, or some renewables," Hayward said.

"We have to get smarter about the sorts of data centres we build, where they are, and the kind of power that they consume."

"We need to be thinking out of the box now. We need to think of other ways to power data centres. We shouldn’t just be thinking about the normal way of doing things."