ICT
Meeraj Shah (left) and Michael Hughes members of the City of Boroondara’s innovative Information Technology department.
Boroondara and Melbourne: At your servers! A unique shared data centre arrangement between the Victorian cities of Boroondara and Melbourne is delivering cost savings and a range of other benefits to both organisations.
Thinking outside the square has paid off for the cities of Boroondara and Melbourne, who are saving hundreds of thousands of dollars and improving disaster recovery plans by housing each other’s secondary data centres. A secondary data centre is a collection of back-up servers. By locating the secondary centre at a separate site, councils can recover quickly and continue their dayto-day work should their primary site be damaged, disabled or destroyed during a disaster, such as a fire or building collapse. The City of Boroondara’s Technical Support Team Leader, Michael Hughes, says the idea was raised three years ago for the first time. Boroondara Program Manager, Jim Papazoglou, attended a local government forum where he met City of Melbourne IT staff and they discussed the risks posed when all of a council’s servers are stored close to one another. “Boroondara I.T. staff were then approached by the City of Melbourne about the idea just as we were commencing construction of Boroondara’s Camberwell Office redevelopment,” said Mr Hughes. “The timing was perfect. We had the space to house Melbourne’s secondary data centre. All we needed to do was ensure that the plans included the capacity to accommodate City of Melbourne’s secondary data centre, and also develop the legal framework to ensure all aspects were covered.” Approximately a year after the idea was first suggested, the City of Melbourne moved its servers into the City of Boroondara’s Camberwell office, where they are still housed today. 28 | Council Manager Jun-Jul 2012
Around the same time, the City of Boroondara was planning to redevelop the Hawthorn Town Hall, where Boroondara’s secondary data centre is housed. “It was always anticipated that Boroondara would be able to take up the reciprocal agreement for housing our secondary data centre in the City of Melbourne’s primary data centre. Thanks to the work we had already done with Melbourne we were able to sign off on this and start working on transferring our equipment within six months.” The City of Boroondara completed its secondary data centre relocation to the City of Melbourne in May. Michael Hughes said that while it required a significant amount of logistical work, the transfer went smoothly. “The fact that we discussed our current and future needs in those initial talks three years ago has allowed us to plan very successfully,” said the Technical Support Team Leader. “Over the last 18 months, the City of Melbourne has renewed their primary data centre. They kept our needs in mind, ensuring they had the capacity to house our equipment.” He believes the shared data centre arrangement between the two councils is unique. “Companies such as Hewlett Packard and others, lease out space for data source hosting. But it can cost organisations significant amounts of money. “By doing something as simple as swapping the locations of our secondary data centres, both councils have made substantial savings,” said Mr Hughes.
When it comes to maintaining the servers, he said each Council looked after their own equipment. “However, if something simple needs to be done, such as switching something on or off, we are both happy to help each other out.” Both Councils assist one another with regular storage and replacing back-up tapes. “The tapes need to be changed, weekly or even daily sometimes. By doing that for one another we both save the time and inconvenience of sending our own staff to our secondary data centre.” Any other data centre maintenance is completed by the relevant Council. One of the unexpected bonuses of the arrangement between the two councils has been incidental knowledge sharing between Melbourne and Boroondara’s IT staff. “Simply by discussing with one another our current or future projects while coordinating equipment maintenance has seen Boroondara and Melbourne IT staff share their knowledge.” For example, both councils’ IT staff have discussed back-up strategies, disaster recovery testing and the pros and cons of the varying types of IT equipment each uses. “The collaboration project between the cities of Boroondara and Melbourne has been fantastic,” said Mr Hughes. “While it has served its practical purpose of finding an effective and cost-efficient way of housing our secondary data centres, it has given both councils a tremendous learning opportunity that will benefit us all.” Article contributed by the City of Boroondara.