The Federal Government’s peak IT strategy group has released a long-awaited request for tender document in draft form that will guide companies on how to apply to supply datacentre services across the public sector in Canberra.

The tender is the result of a lengthy process whereby the Federal Government has put together a 15-year plan for Canberra’s $850 million annual datacentre needs going forward. The Government plans to aggregate datacentre demand across the public sector and establish a panel of suppliers to meet that demand.

The draft RFT has been released by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) through its blog hosted on the Government’s new GovSpace site. The post was published by Kayelle Wiltshire, assistant secretary of the Central Facilities Branch within AGIMO — who wrote that she would be implementing the datacentre strategy detailed by Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner in March.

So far Wiltshire has released a draft statement of requirements (SoR) for the eventual final and complete RFT. The intention is to take industry and community feedback for the RFT to aid in developing the best document possible.

“Over the next three weeks, using this blog, you can offer your opinions and thoughts, either generally or specifically,” wrote Wiltshire. “Working co-operatively, I hope that we can polish the statement of requirements so that it reflects that which industry can provide.”

“You may also be interested to know that a separate RFT for the provision of Data Centre Migration Services is currently being prepared and more information will be made available at a later date.”

The actual statement of requirements document outlines a flexible datacentre strategy, where the Government would prefer to requisition datacentre facilities that allow separate “zones, modules or pods” which could be used by different agencies.

The facilities will be required to match a number of security requirements — from Restricted to Secret and In-Confidence to Highly Protected.

In addition, the Government prefers that datacentre facilities have the ability to connect to multiple telecommunications carriers. Closed circuit television surveillance of the facilities must be in place, and tenderers will have to describe their electricity supply arrangements — including backup generators.

One interesting stipulation was the Government’s note that it encourages “green IT” initiatives — such as green power generated from renewable sources.

Image credit: Whrelf Siemens, royalty free

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