QLD announces consolidation contracts worth $12m

Whole-of-Government data centre consolidation underway.

The Queensland Government has awarded $12 million of IT infrastructure contracts to CDM, EMC, HP, and Dimension Data to consolidate its data centres in Brisbane.

Five contracts were inked on 30 July for the project, which would bring State Government agencies' disparate data centre services into central facilities in Brisbane and Springfield (pictured).

They were announced last week by state ICT Minister Robert Schwarten, who said consolidation would yield improved information security, decreased risk, a reduced carbon footprint, and savings.

Contracts were awarded to CDM for networks and services, EMC for storage and data protection, and HP for data centre automation.

Dimension Data won two of the five contracts: patch and vulnerability management; and security information and event management.

A spokesman for Schwarten's Department of Public Works said the vendor appointments followed an "extremely rigorous procurement process" involving a tender that was open to all industry.

Contract negotiations were undertaken by an independent negotiator, on behalf of the Government, while evaluation and negotiation was conducted by agency representatives and an auditor.

CITEC would lead the delivery of the so-called 'Foundation Infrastructure Project' as part of the Queensland Government's wider whole-of-Government ICT consolidation program.

"The Government has already generated significant consolidation momentum with all 13 Government departments having ICT infrastructure in the consolidated environment taking up housed, hosted and fully managed services from CITEC," the spokesman said.

Implementation of the Foundation Infrastructure Project began in August and was expected to be completed in mid-2011.