The deal for setting up the 'Government Data Centre' (GDC), one of the components of the country's ambitious 'Digital Oman' drive, was signed here between the Information Technology Authority (ITA) and Mideast Data Systems (MDS). GDC, involving a cost of more than RO5.6 million, will provide a multi-tenant Tier 4 level data centre for government IT departments to host their backup systems, with the objective to achieve improved business continuity for their various IT systems.
The agreement was signed by Mohammed bin Nasser Al Khusaibi, Secretary-general of the Ministry of National Economy and Chairman of ITA, with Alain Sawaya, General Manager of MDS-Oman. The establishment of a government data centre was first mooted by ITA in 2006 and proposals submitted by MDS were accepted.
"The GDC initiative achieves redundancy at all stages, and is intended to be third party certified for highest availability," Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi, CEO of ITA, said. "It is also designed in such a way that it will integrate seamlessly within the government network to effectively position the Government GDC as a service available on the government network," he added. GDC will establish a common secure facility for housing government IT systems with a professionally set up infrastructure with Tier-4 availability, Ruzaiqi said.
The centre, he added, would address the lack of a reliable infrastructure to house critical government IT systems and "will enable it to sustain the required mission criticality level.
It also addresses the need for a disaster recovery strategy that is absent in almost all government IT systems," he explained.
In the first phase, MDS will build and equip the data centre and will also train ITA personnel to manage its maintenance. Phase 2 will consist of the operation, the day to day running of the centre. Negotiations for the second phase contract are expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2008.
The centre will also incorporate the environment necessary to house other ITA led eOman initiatives such as the Ubar Portal, Security Infrastructure, E-Payment Gateway and Public Key Infrastructure. "Thus the establishment of the data centre will assure business continuity in the delivery of e-services promoting high levels of availability for mission critical operations of e-government," Ruzaiqi said.
"We are very delighted to have the opportunity to be part of the ITA initiatives by implementing and operating the government data centre," Sawaya said, adding: "Oman is noticing a big growth, especially in the ICT arena. One of the major parts of this initiative is to train and enhance skills of Omani members in order to align with the government plans."
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Ravindra Nath
Quelle/Source: Khaleej Times, 02.02.2008
