Datacom will build a data centre in Hamilton after gaining the bid to supply its cloud and data centre services to the New Zealand Government.

The company has been contracted for a ten-year period with an optional five year extension in being the “preferred” supplier of cloud and data centre services.

As part of a cross-government ICT program from the Department of Internal Affairs, the initiative has been stated to reduce costs and improve the effectiveness of government.

The project will be a tier three centre located in Hamilton on the North Island to extend existing cloud and data centre infrastructure in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

Datacom’s New Zealand CEO, Greg Davidson said Datacom Cloud Services for Government, a stand alone cloud computing platform will be available within 90 days.

Mr Davidson said varying agency requirements will be met by storage and computer services provided in a range of price, performance and availability tiers.

“An online portal will provide agencies with ‘a single pane of glass’ to view, provision and manage the services provided,” Mr Davidson said.

He said the portal will be secured using the New Zealand Government’s ‘igovt’ identity verification service.

According to Mr Davidson, this investment in cloud computing will enable Datacom to offer infrastructure as a service to all New Zealand Government agencies.

Design consultants for the centre in Hamilton will be Beca Carter with Fletcher Building providing construction services.

Sydney-based Datacom Group CEO, Jonathan Ladd said Datacom is continuing to invest in infrastructure across the region because Australia and New Zealand recognise the high growth markets for cloud services.

Mr Ladd said the company is expanding its Sydney cloud platform and establishing nodes in Melbourne and Brisbane to meet demand.

He said the project is a world-first “on this all-of-government” scale for national administration.

Other vendors for the technology operating from the centre will be sourced from Cisco, EMC, HP, IBM, Microsoft, NetAPP, Symantec and VMware.