Cloud service providers enter NSW Govt data centre

The NSW Government has revealed 60 cloud service providers have registered to be part of a private marketplace for IT services to be hosted within two state-of-the-art data centres that come online this year.

Linked gallery: Photos: Metronode opens Silverwater data centre

The data centres, one of which officially went live today, will also house NSW Government IT equipment.

The Government first detailed its plans to set up the Government Private Marketplace in a March tender.

It hopes to encourage uptake of cloud-based software, infrastructure and platforms among agencies.

Minister for Finance and Services Andrew Constance, in his first public address as the state's new head of IT, said today 60 providers had registered to be part of the marketplace.

"Thirty have taken the next step and signed confidentiality deeds, and three have signed on to take space in the data centres," Constance said.

"As with all marketplaces it will take time to reach a level of maturity and development."

Constance this morning attended the opening of one of two data centres being built by Metronode, in which the NSW Government will be an anchor tenant.

The Silverwater data centre in Sydney's west was formally handed over on July 19, and the first lot of state government agencies have already started to transition IT equipment into the new facility.

"We had a low key celebration a couple of weeks ago on the actual handover day," Nextgen Group CEO Peter McGrath said. Nextgen owns data centre builder Metronode.

A second Metronode data centre at Unanderra on the NSW south coast is due to come online later this month.

Constance expected the government would achieve energy savings "in the millions" of dollars by consolidating existing server rooms and data centres run by agencies into the two Metronode facilities.

When further data halls are constructed, the Silverwater facility is expected to house about $200 million of NSW Government IT equipment.

The facility achieved Tier III certification from the Uptime Institute, which attended today's launch, making the data centre one of only around 70 globally to have met the requirements for official certification.

Constance said the Silverwater facility would make NSW "the envy of all other governments in Australia, not just at a state-based level but at a Commonwealth level."

He said interested governments had already made approaches to NSW over the new facility.

The high-security Silverwater facility requires keycard and biometric authentication to move between areas.

It is divided into three "pavilions". The front contains a security office, twin telecommunications point-of-presence rooms and two build rooms, where the government will be able to set up and test IT infrastructure prior to putting it into the data halls.

The data halls are mostly free-cooled. There are mechanical direct expansion chillers available, but Metronode believes these will only run for about 15 percent of the year.

Power is monitored to the suite level, though it can optionally go down to the rack or port level.

The facility already has a diverse fibre route supplied by Nextgen but is carrier neutral, and the company expects more fibre operators to connect to the facility now that it is open for business.