[LINK] Australian Government Data Centre Strategy

[Tom Worthington]

Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
> ... Australian Government has endorsed the Data Centre Strategy ...
> http://www.finance.gov.au/e-government/infrastructure/docs/AGDC_Strategy.pdf

The document is remarkably succinct and clearly written (7 pages PDF 266 
Kbytes). It follows much the same approach as already detailed in the 
Queensland Government Enterprise Architecture Data Centres Policy 
(December 2009): 
<http://www.qgcio.qld.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/Architecture%20and%20Standards/QGEA%202.0/Data%20Centre%20policy.pdf>.

Participation in the data centre strategy is mandatory for most federal 
government departments and optional for some agencies. In the first five 
years, the aim is to define standards, establish a panel for data centre 
facilities and services and assist early adopters. The interim data 
centre panel is expected to cease by late 2010. The minimum floor space 
for new centres leased will be 500 square metres, over 10 years (with 
five year extensions).

The strategy estimates a saving of $35 million per annum in electricity 
costs, and a reduction in the carbon footprint of 13 per cent (40,000 
tonnes per annum of CO2e) from using modern data centres. It also 
suggests further reductions by exploiting "free cooling" where the air 
temperature is below 16°C.

I could find little to criticise in the report, apart from a minor 
quibble that some of the specialist research reports and benchmarking 
data it is based on do not yet appear to have been released (in 
accordance with government policy). It will be difficult to assess the 
soundness of the proposed strategy in detail until the underlying work 
it is based on is released.

Also the document was released in a hard to read PDF format, rather than 
as a true electronic document. As a result the document is five times 
larger than it need be. If this applies to Commonwealth applications in 
general, then savings from revising applications would dwarf any savings 
from the data centre strategy.

For details of the how and why of such green data centre strategies, see 
my book "Green Technology Strategies": <http://www.tomw.net.au/green/>.
Several government staff and data centre vendors have already undertaken 
the accompanying course at ANU and ACS to implement the strategy. The 
course will be widely available in second semester 2010 via Open 
Universities Australia to students of Curtin University, Griffith 
University, Macquarie University, Monash University, RMIT University, 
Swinburne University and the University of South Australia.

More at: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2010/03/australian-government-data-centre.html>.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/user/3890