Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council has appointed a supplier to move its data centre – which is currently at risk from flooding and dust damage.
Secure IT Environments has been awarded the contract, believed to be worth around £1m, to migrate its data centre to a car park at the council’s Civic Suite.
The move, which follows a tendering process, will allow the council to undertake the refurbishment of its headquarters, which is pencilled in for next year.
A statement from the council said: “The new data centre is key to ensuring business continuity for all services within the council. It will help us to reduce energy consumption and provide a cost effective solution for the future.”
Last year, a report to the council found that the current location of the data centre has been problematical due to a number of flooding incidents in recent years.A water pipe running alongside the data centre also provides another risk, it said.
It said that the risk of damage was likely to increase due to the refurbishment work on the building.
“A dust-free environment is essential to the operation of data centre equipment. If this is compromised as a result of building work an incident could occur that could cause the data centre to become non-operational and thus have a universal impact on business continuity affecting all Council services,” it said.
Neither the council or Secure IT Environments have released the value of the contract.
However, last year, the council estimated the cost at £1.051m, with £200,000 earmarked from council funds, with the rest due to be paid for through prudential borrowing.
The migration is due to start in April and last for a year, running in parallel with the existing centre.
Chris Wellfair, projects director at Secure IT Environments, said: “The new data centre allows for growth in the foreseeable future of around 10 to 20 years with greatly improved energy efficiency in terms of power usage and carbon footprint.”
