Govt certifies first three ‘strategic’ data centre providers – Strategy – Storage

The federal federal government has qualified the initially three facts centre companies under its new web hosting certification framework, with all guarded-amount facts now anticipated to be stored in these amenities.

Work minister Stuart Robert, who retains responsiblity for the government’s digital agenda, late on Friday discovered that the initially companies had acquired the eco-friendly tick, devoid of disclosing their names.

A spokesperson for the Digital Transformation Company informed iTnews this week that three companies on the government’s facts centre panel had been afforded the coveted ‘certified strategic’ tag.

‘Certified strategic web hosting provider’ is the best amount assurance, and calls for facts centres and managed companies companies to let the federal government to specify possession and management ailments.

The lesser certification is ‘certified assured web hosting provider’ – the minimum get-in for facts centre and managed companies companies wanting to host guarded-amount facts or federal government-large devices.

“Three companies have been qualified strategic from the demands defined in the web hosting certification framework,” the DTA mentioned.

“All those companies are Australian Info Centres (ADC), Canberra Info Centres (CDC) and Macquarie Telecom (Canberra Campus).

“The DTA is performing with other companies who have asked for certification and will make additional announcements in thanks training course.”

‘Direct’ companies on the government’s facts centre panel were the initially to develop into eligible to utilize for certification under the framework in April, with the certification procedure to run in between April and December.

Info centre companies however to be qualified are: NextDC, Fujitsu, Equinix, Datacom, Vocus, NTT, Datapod, iiNet, Hewlett Packard, iseek, Digital Feeling and Frontier.

Other ‘indirect’ companies that host federal government devices and facts this sort of as cloud support companies will be able to utilize for certification under a next phase, which is anticipated to take place in September 2021.

New facts storage demands appear into influence

With the initially companies now qualified, Robert mentioned “all applicable federal government data” for in-flight and potential jobs “must only be stored in both qualified assured or qualified strategic facts centres.”

Less than the web hosting certification framework, applicable facts is defined as guarded-amount facts and facts from complete-of-federal government devices.

Robert mentioned the web hosting certification framework positions the federal government as an exemplar in facts defense, strengthening the controls to improve the resilience of facts infrastructure.

“The… federal government is fully commited to possessing effective controls in place for the important devices and facts holdings that underpin the operation of federal government,” he mentioned.

“This includes figuring out how, where by and when facts is stored and transmitted whilst achieving greater assurance about the operation and source chains of companies.”

But the guidelines won’t increase to the Office of Defence, which carries on to host guarded-amount facts in World-wide Switch’s Sydney-based facts centre.

The World-wide Change facility, which the bulk of federal federal government companies will leave by July 2022, is no lengthier authorised on the government’s panel.

Defence eliminated all its major key and key facts by May possibly 2020.

Its chief details officer Stephen Pearson informed senate estimates previous week that staggering the migration of its remaining facts was a “risk based decision”.

“We are the most significant holder of facts in World-wide Change, and the intent was to… take a progressive transfer out of World-wide Change.. to minimise the risk to functions,” he mentioned.

He mentioned Defence was self-assured that the DTA’s tier one facts centre companies will be able to host its facts submit-World-wide Change.

“We are hunting to where by we would place it, but… of the DTA’s listing of tier one facts centre companies, all of individuals would have capacity in between them to be able to glimpse following Defence,” he mentioned.

“Because of the mother nature of where by World-wide Change is, we’ll have to not just take it out of one facts centre, perhaps, and place it into a further one.

“Global Change was a disaster restoration web-site for some other spots as nicely, so we just can’t have all our facts centres in one town, so we will split the capacity there and place it in different facts centres.”