Dhaka — The Cabinet Committee on Public Procurement and Economic Affairs of Bangladesh government has approved in principle the a proposal ICT department to purchase cloud services directly from technology giant Oracle for the country’s ‘Four Tier’ national data center which is being set up at Bangabandhu Hi-Tech Park in Kaliakair.
The committee chaired by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Thursday approved the proposal of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Department. The State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak said the rationale for choosing a direct purchase method for data centers is to save money, ensure data security and the need for data centers in times of emergency.
“We need to increase the capacity of our cloud services. We now have to host several large systems, starting with e-documents, security platforms, virtual courts, NBRs, election commissions. These activities will be hampered if cloud capacity does not increase rapidly, the minister said.
Founded in 2010, the Tier Three quality national data center now offers three types of services —infrastructure, platform and software.
Explaining the reasons for choosing Oracle, the state minister said 145 government agencies, including power, energy and land, which manage the databases, use Oracle’s SQL database system.
They have to pay about 45 million a year in service charges and license fees.
“This data center is being set up at Bangabandhu Hi-Tech Park in Kaliakair. As a result, the information will be in the territory of our country. That would save 45 million.”
The state minister for ICT hopes that the national data center will move to ‘break even’ within the next four years.
