NZ Police sign with Revera for infrastructure as a service

Completion date for IaaS project expected to be mid-2013

The New Zealand Police have signed with Revera under the government infrastructure as a service (IaaS) arrangement.

Infrastructure as a service is a vendor-hosted and managed solution that enables government agencies to buy their computing infrastructure on demand from either Revera, Datacom or IBM. Agencies no longer need to purchase and maintain their own infrastructure.

The IaaS arrangement is expected to save taxpayers up to $250 million over the next decade, according to Internal Affairs Minister Chris Tremain.

A police spokesperson has confirmed the deal and says the first stage of the transition in Auckland has been done. The full project is expected to be completed by mid-2013.

She would not say who had the contract previously. Police CIO Stephen Crombie says he can’t comment at this stage.

Revera general manager Robin Cockayne won’t comment, either.

Revera lit up its new tier 3 datacentre in Upper Hutt in May, called ART (Alexander Road, Trentham). It contains two modules, the first of which houses racks inside individually allocated Type-R ecopods. The second module, currently vacant, will be fitted out and podded once the first module surpasses 70 percent capacity, introducing new technology and design tweaks that weren’t available at the outset. A twin facility, ART2, will be built when capacity thresholds at ART are threatened.

FX Networks, which is a major supplier to Police, will handle the networking side of the Revera contract. No one from FX Networks would comment.