The inauguration was presided by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Communications, Austin Gatt and MITA Chairman Claudio Grech. Prior to the official launch, journalists were taken on a media tour of the new Data Centre.
The new Data Centre will serve to support the already two existing hosting data centres namely the one close to MITA’s Head Office and the other in Mater Dei hospital. The new Data Centre extends itself over an area of 2,490 metres whilst the offices occupy 1,592m. Its design was inspired from computer elements such as circuit boards and flow diagrams, and the design of the new facade reflects the dynamism and futuristic outlook of the IT world. A total of 7,000m of copper cabling and 8,000m of fibre cabling have been laid out. The energy will be supplied by two substations within the actual centre whilst two generators will serve as backup. Photo-voltaic panels of 20KW have also been installed on the centre’s roof. The centre is equipped to manage over 28,000 users, 450 terrabytes of storage place and has the capability of managing 16,000 accounts handling a million emails every day.
In his address, Minister Gatt explained how the development of this new data centre was a direct answer to the need for more storage space as the existing centres were clearly not equipped enough to cater for all the current Government’s ICT requirements and those that it intends to roll out in the next 20 years. “The eLearning solution which will be accessed by over 45,000 teachers and students in primary and secondary schools, the eHealth solutions and the eID cards systems, to be used by every Maltese and Gozitan citizen, together with the eGovernment services are clear examples of the imminent need of more data storage facilities”. Also since the nature of such services is so sensitive the Government cannot risk losing control of such complex systems. Therefore through its ISO 27001 certification MITA takes on a high level of security, this is important especially since it will be handling such important ICT solutions,” explained Minister Gatt.
The Government has recently launched its eGovernment vision which centred specifically round the requirements of Maltese citizens. It seeks to provide online service to ensure accessibility 24/7 and through any device one would like to access the service. These services will also reduce citizens having to go to and fro different departments and be served from one single portal that will allow access to the various eGovernment services.
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Quelle/Source: di-ve, 08.12.2011
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