Department consolidates seven facilities into two.
on May 1 2012 7:23AM
Canberra Data Centres (CDC) managing director Greg Boorer, Minister for Human Services Kim Carr and Department of Human Services' (DHS) chief information officer Gary Sterrenberg at the department's new data centre.
The DHS expects to save $5 million per year in power costs after merging seven ageing data centres into two more modern facilities, including the CDC facility in Hume.
The data centre features hot aisle containment with "free air" capable air-cooled chillers that do not use any water, thus avoiding the use of up to 100,000 litres of water per day.
It has a diesel generator farm, bulk fuel storage, and ‘live’ tanker refuelling station on site, as well as emergency diesel supply contracts, allowing the data centre to run indefinitely in "island" mode without mains power.
DHS CIO Gary Sterrenberg said data centre consolidation would improve the availability of the department's ICT services. "We had 500 independent servers spread across seven or eight data centres. Each of those was a point of failure," he explained.
"With the move to Hume we’ve consolidated infrastructure into 50 servers, that are virtualised."
CDC's facility in Hume opened in May 2008 and serves 20 agencies, including the Department of Health and Ageing and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Human Services will consume half of the CDC's capacity, under a ten-year lease agreement with extension options.
Canberra Data Centres (CDC) managing director Greg Boorer, Minister for Human Services Kim Carr and Department of Human Services' (DHS) chief information officer Gary Sterrenberg at the department's new data centre.