RFP sought on tele-housing

The Ministry of Health is releasing a Request For Proposal for Tele-Housing Services next week [week commencing 31/3/08]. 

The RFP is primarily aimed at secure hosting services for its Data Centre equipment but it also includes the potential for additional management capabilities and services to move to a facility capable of supporting both the Ministry's current business activity and its strategic information programmes.

The Ministry currently operates out of three primary data centres - two in Wellington and one in Auckland. These centres operate at full capacity and without significant investment could not provide an appropriate environment able to support future services.

Ministry of Health Deputy Director-General Information Directorate Alan Hesketh says: "Whilst Information is key to achieving Health Outcomes for New Zealanders, the provision of hosting environments and low level service management is not strategic for the Ministry.

"We want to focus our energy and experience on the aspects of information management and service delivery that are unique to Health and provide direct benefit to the Health System."

"It is increasingly common business practice to use hosting services for IT equipment and we are seeking the benefits from using specialised companies that provide core tele-housing services efficiently and cost effectively."

The RFP also calls for transition services to support the migration of equipment from Ministry premises to the data centres of the successful respondent. As part of this process the three data centres will be consolidated to one primary centre with a remote secondary site as part of the Ministry's business continuity arrangements. The Ministry's virtualisation strategy which gives greater flexibility for using hardware and the availability of the new SAN (storage array network) will significantly aid the migration.