With a study currently underway to decide where the centre will be situated, the facility's prime function will be to ensure 'business continuity,' according to Dr Salim al Ruzaiqi, CEO of ITA.
Speaking to Muscat Daily on the sidelines of the 'DatacentreDynamics' conference at the Grand Hyatt Muscat, Ruzaiqi said that the location of the centre is crucial, adding that it has to be connected to two main power lines - to ensure constant power supply.
He said, "In two to three months we will have a tender to design our national data centre which is going to be outside Muscat. "This will be our main business continuity data centre. Part of the current study will be to select the area."
Once it is up and running, the centre will act as a store for vital government and digital services data should their own systems fail, which is expected to help keep services available and also mitigate risk.
Speaking at the opening of the conference, Ruzaiqi said that a priority for the ITA over the next five years is to put e-services on the infrastructure building blocks, which are already in place.
"In the next five years, we are moving services online. E-service transformation is becoming the top priority in this Five-Year Plan. The infrastructure for e-government is ready, and now we are looking forward in the next five years to put services on top of this infrastructure.
"We are focusing on mobile development and Arabic content. We are going to be working on open source with five universities. We have the regional platform, and we have the e-government framework."
Since the e.oman initiative was approved in 2003 and the ITA was established in 2006, more than 500 government sites are now operational, which makes up 70 per cent of the authority's target total. There are also 80 e-services and 620 information services available online, as well as a mobile portal.
To achieve ITA's targets and to create a strong information technology industry in the sultanate, Ruzaiqi added that they are "working with the right stakeholders to create the platform for the ICT industry."
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Alex Adams
Quelle/Source: Zawya, 26.09.2011
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