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RSTP NEEDS ABOUT E309M FOR NEW PROJECT

14/02/2021 00:31:00 BY MFANUKHONA NKAMBULE

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mfanukhona@times.co.sz

PHOCWENI – After spending over E800 million on two projects at Phocweni and Nokwane, the Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP) is not done.

The RSTP, a 100 per cent government owned company, has lined up a third gigantic project to back up the two infrastructure built at a cost of over E800 million.

Through the Ministry of Information, Technology and Communication, the public enterprise needs an estimated E309 million to undertake the project classified as ‘Disaster Recovery Site’. It is basically a backup centre that will store and retrieve lost data kept at the Information Technology Park at Phocweni.

construction

By March 31, 2019, government had spent E408 393 000 on the construction of the Biotechnology Park at Nokwane and E404 397 000 was used for the building of the IT Centre at Phocweni, totalling to E812 790 000.

However, it must be said that the RSTP asked for an additional amount of E133 million in this financial year for the completion of construction, supervision, payment of retention fees and procurement of furniture and fittings for the Biotechnology Park.

It also requested for E71 million to fully operate the National Data Centre at Phocweni, further cater for security systems, server infrastructure, tier certificate and provision of consultancy services.

It is said that the two projects are at high risk without the backup centre.

For security reasons, the Times SUNDAY cannot disclose the place where the disaster recovery centre will be built except to mention that it shall be constructed in the Lubombo Region.

Senzo Malaza, the Senior Communications Officer at RSTP, confirmed the new project, adding that its vitality or significance was underlined by the availability of the two structures, which could not operate efficiently without it.

Talking about strategies to get local and international clients, Malaza pointed to the fact that data storage required an extreme high level of security, which the customers would guarantee for safety of their delicate information.

He said the Disaster Recovery Site serves to guarantee safety of information in the event of an unforeseen circumstance occurring at the National Data Centre.

He made an example of a fire outbreak consuming the computerised files, saying such delicate information would still be available at the Backup Centre.

The senior communications officer said the public enterprise wanted to set up a structure that would kick up, without switching it on in times of unforeseen emergencies.

“For us to attract a large clientele locally and internationally, the backup centre is crucial,” he said.

He said they had discovered that clients appreciated seeing an infrastructure that would retrieve lost information. He said the first question they asked was ‘how safe is our information here’.

He said they would adequately respond to the question by pointing to the Disaster Recovery Site.

“We want to eliminate any risk associated with disaster so that our clients are at peace with us,” he said.

The journalist and former newsreader at Eswatini Broadcasting and Information Services (EBIS) said it was important the National Data Centre generated an income for the nation.

Experts say when disaster strikes - more often than not, unexpectedly - the consequences for the business can be unpredictable. They say this unforeseen circumstance could result in a loss of revenue, damaged business reputation, destruction of the production centre, interrupted service delivery, and a loss of credibility with the company’s customers.

To avoid the risk of putting the business in danger, the experts say it is essential to prepare a business or company to prepare in advance by designing an effective disaster recover plan, which they refer to as DR.

One of the main components of a DR plan is the secondary site (also known as DR site), which will be used for data storage and rapid recovery in case disaster strikes.

What is a disaster

recovery site?

A disaster recovery site is a location used by an organisation for restoring its IT infrastructure and business-critical operations when a primary production centre is affected by a natural or man-made disaster.

Disaster recovery sites are often built in a remote location so as to ensure that the disaster which has affected the main site will not affect the secondary site as well. Creating a DR site allows an organisation to continue conducting operations and delivering services without disruption, until the primary location is restored.

Types of disaster

recovery sites

The experts in IT say there are three types of backup sites: cold sites, warm sites and hot sites.

Cold site

A cold site is a backup facility with little or no hardware equipment installed. A cold site is essentially an office space with basic utilities such as power, cooling system, air conditioning and communication equipment, etc. A cold site is the most cost-effective option among the three disaster recovery sites.

However, due to the fact that a cold site doesn’t have any pre-installed equipment, it takes a lot of time to properly set it up so as to fully resume business operations. In case of a disaster, an organisation would require help from IT personnel to migrate necessary servers and make them functional in order to take on the workload of the primary site.

Hot site

A hot site is a backup facility which represents a mirrored copy of the primary production centre. A hot site is equipped with all the necessary hardware, software and network connectivity, which allows the company to perform near real-time backup or replication of the critical data.

This way the production workload can be failed over to a DR site in a few minutes or hours, thus ensuring minimal downtime and zero data loss. A hot site is expected to always be online and running without disruption so as to ensure data synchronisation between the sites.

A hot site is the most expensive option among the three. Thus, it is important to ensure that this type of a DR site is located far enough from the production centre. This way the company can decrease the possibility of a hot site being affected by the same disaster as the primary site.

Warm site

A warm site is considered the middle ground between the cold site and the hot site. A warm site is a backup facility that has the network connectivity and the necessary hardware equipment already pre-installed.

However, a warm site cannot perform on the same level as the production centre because they are not equipped in the same way.

Therefore, a warm site has less operational capacity than the primary site. Moreover, data synchronisation between the primary and the secondary sites is performed daily or weekly, which can result in minor data loss.

A warm site is perfect for organisations which operate with less critical data and can tolerate a short period of downtime. This type of a DR site is the second most expensive option.