NSW Government signs mega data centre deal

iTnews gets the skinny on the IT deal of the year.

The NSW Government is on the cusp of signing an historic agreement to become the anchor tenant at two new Metronode data centres to be built in Sydney and on the NSW south coast.

The Leighton Holdings subsidiary will build the Sydney facility, in Silverwater, by mid-2013 as well as a second facility at Unanderra near Wollongong by the end of 2013.

Each facility will offer nine megawatts of capacity.

The complex deal – one of the first of its kind in Australia – will see the NSW Government guaranteed access to up to half the power capacity at both facilities for anywhere between ten and twenty years into the future.

The Government intends to use the data centres to replace 130 server rooms in operation across its departments.

The first tenants to sign on to use the facility are the largest users of IT in the state: NSW Health, the Department of Education and Communities, the Department of Finance and Services and Corrections NSW.

All other agencies will be directed by the Department of Finance and Services to migrate to the new facilities within four years.

A NSW Government spokesperson said the state currently operates “everything from broom closets to whole data centres”.

“It’s not an efficient way to run Government,” the spokesman said.

The new facilities are expected to help the Government consolidate its IT spend and promote economic development in Western Sydney and the Illawarra.

The value of the contract was not disclosed due to Metronode financing the facility build itself.

The facilities

According to documents seen by iTnews, Metronode’s proposed Silverwater data centre will offer nine megawatts of IT load over 5600 square metres of technical floorspace; enough for 2500 racks in 83 self-contained computer rooms and around the same amount of space again for plant.

Metronode has acquired a larger plot of land in Unanderra worth 22,000 square metres to build a second data centre with similar specifications - nine megawatts of power and more than 5600 square metres of plant space with 5300 square metres of server room floor. The facility will handle 2340 racks in 78 computer rooms.

Metronode is basing its next generation of data centres around the country on the BladeRoom modular construction used in its recently completed Melbourne data centre.

A spokeswoman for the company refused to comment on the NSW Government deal, pending an actual contract being signed between the parties.

Head over the page for details on the unprecedented controls the NSW Government gains from its data centre deal.