Government Data Centres

GovDC is a series of data centre services offered by the NSW Government to enable agencies to consume ICT with maximum efficiency (cost, effort, flexibility), ease of cloud connectivity and physical security. Core to the program is two state-of-the-art data centre's purpose built for NSW Government.

Who can use GovDC?

• Any government agency
• State owned corporations
• Statutory bodies
• Subsidiaries of NSW Government
• Local government councils
• University or related educational institutes

The NSW Government Cloud Policy (refer DCS-2021-01 Cloud Circular) states that public cloud should be the primary option for any agency undertaking a significant refresh or new project. All other ICT must still be housed in the GovDC data centre, and any requests to be exempt from this policy must be directed to the Government Technology Platforms team for processing and Secretary approval.

GovDC is a State Digital Asset. State Digital Assets (SDA) are available for use by multiple NSW Government agencies to serve as the building blocks for NSW to provide proactive, customised, and seamless services to our customers. 

1. GovDC Co-location Services

Satisfying the ongoing demand for on-premises ICT infrastructure, including private cloud and hosted environments, are the GovDC data centres. Purpose built for NSW government and operated by the world’s largest data centre provider, Equinix, the two GovDC data centres provide whole of government colocation services, including on-premises, private cloud and community cloud services.

GovDC Co-location allows agencies to easily adopt hybrid cloud architectures which are increasingly popular with agencies and other public sector bodies. Features:

• Government managed service dedicated to protection of agency and citizen data
• Uptime Institute Tier III design and operation for 100% uptime geographically separated by >70km for greater resilience
• Operated with ESG in mind

Use of the GovDC locations for any IT hosting outside of public cloud deployments is mandated by DCS-2021-01 Cloud Circular. Exemptions to the cloud circular must be directed to GTP.

2. PROTECTED workloads and PSPF Zone 3 Co-location Panel

Where an agency has the need to host data and systems that are must meet the federal government security classification of PROTECTED, an alternative to the primary GovDC data centres exists.

To have an IT workload classified as PROTECTED, the data centre hosting the data and systems must by certified to the Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF) Policy 15 – Zone 3 standards.

Whilst the primary GovDC locations are highly secure locations, and operated to Equinix global standards, the GovDC areas have not been certified to PSPF Zone 3. As such, a panel arrangement has been put in place whereby, through an approved exemption, an agency may request hosting in one of the alternate Zone 3/4 certified data centres included in the C555 PSPF Zone 3 Co-location panel.

The exemption process is documented in circular 2021-01 Cloud Circular.

3. GovDC Cloud

GTP offers a government community cloud within the GovDC data centres with offerings from an expanding number of vendors. The community cloud is useful for agencies that have a need to consume a cloud service but would prefer, or need, it to be hosted adjacent to their on-premise ICT. This provides the benefits of on-premise based services, with the many of the features of a cloud-based architecture.

4. Government Secure Network (GSN)

The Government Secure Network (GSN) has been developed to provide critical infrastructure capabilities for NSW Government Agencies. Specifically, GSN addresses the IT networking requirements between data hosting environments to provide secure network services and maximise cost savings. GSN directly supports the NSW Government Cloud Policy and GovDC mandate by providing a common interconnector for hosting locations.