A new Public Sector Shared Data Centre has been opened at BT in Belfast by the Finance Minister, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir.
The leading communications provider, which signed a major £15 million deal with the Department of Finance, will now house much of the IT services, not only for the Northern Ireland Civil Service but also for the wider public sector.
Phase one of the roll-out has opened and anchor tenants for the new Data Centres will include IT Assist, Business Services Organisation, NI Water and Translink. BT will manage the centres’ operations, including business continuity, while the public sector will continue to manage the IT systems within them.
Paul Murnaghan, Regional Director for BT Business in Northern Ireland, said: “We are delighted to welcome the Minister to BT today to officially open these new public sector shared service data centre facilities.
“We are proud to have been trusted to host public sector data for the next 10-16 years as part of our long established strategic partnership with our public sector colleagues. These cutting edge data centre facilities will significantly reduce their costs and provide them with enhanced services to benefit their organisations.”
Finance Minister, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, added: “I am keen to see change in the public sector which not only saves the public purse, but also helps us ensure that the public sector is at the cutting edge of the latest technology, driving forward efficiency. These very impressive new data centres will centralise a range of smaller service teams under one roof. The data centres will produce significant savings on running costs in the region of £0.5 million each year and annual savings are projected to grow to around £7.5m for the public sector over the course of the next decade.
“Our citizens deserve and indeed demand high quality digital services and to this end I want to see the public sector speed up the pace of this delivery. The new data facilities will provide a welcome boost towards our efforts and also offer high levels of security and operational stability.”
