[LINK] Defence to slash data centre costs

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

<brd>
It's data centre week....
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Defence to slash data centre costs
Fran Foo
The Australian
June 29, 2010
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/defence-to-slash-data-centre-costs/story-e6frgakx-1225885396202

Defence has selected a new supplier, kicking off plans to save more than 
$400 million over a decade in data centre costs.

It had chosen a facility outside the ACT of 1000-plus square metres, 
Defence chief technology officer Matt Yannopoulos told The Australian.

The contract -- for an undisclosed sum -- is for five years, with a 
five-year extension option, Mr Yannopoulos said.

Defence has about 200 data centres and server rooms spread across seven 
locations. Over the years it had endured several data centre problems 
and was in needed more space.

Mr Yannopoulos said Defence had a late 2013 or early 2014 target to 
realise its vision of reducing the number to "under 10 facilities".

"I always say our intention is to go to less than 10, fundamentally 
because of the secret nature of the infrastructure," Mr Yannopoulos said.

"But I will have a small number of restricted data centres -- at the 
moment it is intended to be two plus a disaster recovery site."

Defence hopes to save $417m over the next 10 years through the data 
centre consolidation program.

Last year it was given the green light to look for an interim solution, 
using a panel established by the federal government.

The panel members consist of Polaris, Global Switch, Fujitsu, Canberra 
Data Centres and Harbour MSP.

Defence selected two companies from the list and invited them to 
participate in the process.

The main aim of the stop-gap measure is to ensure continuity of business 
at Defence, Mr Yannopoulos said.

"I can confirm we are nearly finalised on our negotiations through the 
interim data centre panel . . . we sought 1000-plus square metres," he said.

"We wrote to two of the panellists setting out our requirements."

He declined to disclose their identities or the value of the contract.

It could be a two-horse race between Polaris, based at Springfield, 
Queensland, and Sydney's Global Switch, which already counts the 
Australian Taxation Office as a client.

Mr Yannopoulos said Defence hoped to announce the winner as early as 
this week, depending on the outcome of final negotiations and approvals.

Defence went to market for a data centre with average power and cooling 
capacity of about 1450 Watts per square metre.

Defence is also on the lookout for a partner to handle transportation of 
data centre equipment to the new facility.

"The interim solution will be outside of Canberra. There were two key 
things that we needed: one was space to move into and second was 
selection of a partner to move our equipment," Mr Yannopoulos said. "The 
first migration is of our major computing centres in the ACT and then 
there will be additional pieces -- and some of this I want to work 
through with industry -- that takes some of our regional applications 
into these new premises."

He is interested in industry feedback on the best way to physically move 
the hardware before making a decision.

"I really want to take some advice from those who specialise in this 
sort of move before I lock down exactly the way Defence will go," he said.

Mr Yannopoulos confirmed consultancy outfit KPMG would continue to play 
a prominent role in Defence's ambitious program. KPMG will earn more 
than $2m for drawing up Defence's data centre business case and the 
"conceptual design" for the move to the new premises.

"KPMG are very good at financial analysis and in helping us with our 
acquisition strategy for major programs," he said. KPMG was also 
involved in Defence's next-generation desktop project.

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Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
email:	 brd at iimetro.com.au
website: www.drbrd.com