Several high level dignitaries including the Minister of Commerce & Industry, General Secretary of Ministry of Finance, Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Transport and Communications for Communications, Under Secretary at the Minister of Commerce & Industry, CEO of Omantel, CEO of PEIE, board of directors of ITA, a number of Excellencies and Under Secretaries and other notable guests attended this launch ceremony.
After the formal launch key dignitaries toured the data centre facility to witness a demonstration of services provided.
The contract to build this centre was finalized in January 2008, in the course of realising the Digital society of Oman to secure e-government services while assuring business continuity.
The National Data Centre was designed to provide a multi tenant high availability Data Centre for all Government ministries to host their data as well as disaster recovery solution, with the objective to achieve improved business continuity for their various IT systems.
The National Data Centre currently hosts national level projects such as the Government e-Services Portal, eTendering system and ITA's internal infrastructure projects and systems.
'This National Data Center of the Sultanate of Oman is built as a state-of-the art facility to achieve the required level redundancy at all stages, and will soon be certified for highest availability. The centre facilitates the integration of governmental systems seamlessly within the Government Network. A team of Omani professionals have been involved both at the design and installation stages of this project and have built capability to manage its operations as well,' said Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi, CEO of ITA.
The National Data Center has a redundant (duplication) in all systems to prevent single points of failure. All elements of the internal electrical systems and data communication networks are fully duplicated. NDC has backup generators for power that can run for 5 days without refuelling in case of any mains power failure.
NDC has a centralized 24/7 Network Operation Command Center for monitoring HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning), Power systems, Networking and Storage systems, Fire Suppression and Water Leakage detection systems. Physical security plays a crucial role in data centres' security.
The physical environment of the NDC is rigorously controlled by RFID/Biometric cards readers (based on national/residential ID cards) at each access point and CCTV cameras are placed all over the NDC physical area. Security guards are present 24/7 at the NDC main entrance monitoring surveillance cameras at all access points including corridors.
Establishment of a state of the art NDC for the Government and the people of Oman will provide improved efficiency and will improve business assurance. Public sector systems will also achieve improved integration and scalability of application. NDC also provides adequate levels of confidentiality, integrity, availability and privacy of citizen data that is held in e-government systems while operating the equipments reliably, even under the worst circumstances.
NDC's secure facility will also provide reliable infrastructure for ITA-led initiatives such as the Security Infrastructure, E-Payment gateway and Key Public infrastructures.
The second phase of the data centre will see continued operations of the facility managed by a pool of Omani professionals. There are automated control systems which monitor various parameters like cooling, humidity levels within the facility. Power systems supporting the centre include main power lines, generators, UPS systems and battery sources.
Ministries can now utilise services such as co-location device hosting, highly redundant and high capacity storage services, provision of online/offline data backups, Onsite/Offsite fire-safe storage of media combined with 24/7 network operation management, storage and backup. In order to ensure continuous support of NDC clients, a 24/7 help desk services have been established at the NDC.
The NDC has physical facilities that includes; Server room, Network Operation Command (NOC) Center, Client Operation room, 2 Battery rooms, Electrical and UPS rooms, Storage and Holding Areas and Staging room.
NDC will provide several benefits to the ministries including improved Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) solution, improved efficiency and reduce costs, improve the integration and scalability of ministries applications, provide a reliable environment for hosted equipment under the worst circumstances, provide access to secure e-Services at all time and protect confidentiality, integrity, availability and privacy of hosted/stored data.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Rana Mesbah
Quelle/Source: AME Info, 03.05.2009
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