A proposal to establish a Tier-4 data centre in the country will be placed at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs today for approval.
If approved, the government will sign a deal with China's state-owned company ZTE Holdings under the Public Procurement Rules (PPR), said Shyam Sunder Sikder, Secretary to Information Communication Division.
The world currently has four Tier-4 data centres and the proposed one will be the fifth of its kind. Tier-4 data centres are the largest of other three types of data centres.
“We have a plan to establish this type of data centre (Tier-4) to preserve all of our data. We can lend the data, if preserved, to other giant companies and to some states,” Shyam Sunder Sikder told Dhaka Tribune.
According to the summary prepared for the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, the proposed data centre will cost $154m (around Tk1,199.35 crore) and the location is Gazipur’s Kaliakair.
Earlier on August 2013 the ICT Division signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ZTE Holdings, which was approved by the Economic Relations Division.
Data centres create opportunities to store data and give people access to important and sensitive information. Banks, research centres, government and business organisations mostly use the data centres to store information and keep backup data at a safe location.
The current Tier 4 data centres are located in Madrid (Spain), Alcala de Henares (Spain), Las Vegas (USA), Olathe (USA) and Guelph (Canada).
The tier ranking for data centres depends on the service of quality and availability. A tier-4 data centre remains available 99.995% of the time of a year with an annual down-time of 26.28 minutes.
Bangladesh currently owns a tier-3 data centre. But a small amount of data has been stored there.
Meanwhile, some have disputed the suitability of the proposed location for the Tier-4 data centre as a geological survey reports that Gazipur’s Kaliakair is an earthquake zone.