Aiming to expand cloud computing and reduce pressure on the existing government data centres, the state-owned Bangladesh Data Centre Company Limited (BDCCL) plans to establish two data centres in the country.
One of these would be set up in Ishurdi, Pabna and another in Rajshahi district.
However, the proposed Data Center/Digester Recovery Centre at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Hi-Tech Park in Rajshahi would play an additional role as backup for the national data centre at the ICT tower and the tier 4 data centre of the government located in Kaliakoir in Gazipur district.
The Disaster Recovery Centre would help with digital data processing and operation of internet service even if the existing data centre fails operation due to any digester by natural or human-created hazards.
ICT Division has sent two separate preliminary development project proposals (PDPP) to the planning commission with estimated costs of Tk2,939 crore.
The authority would seek financial support from China to implement these projects, said officials of the ICT division.
A letter forwarded from the ICT division revealed that the aim of the project titled “Construction of a Data Centre (DC) at Ishurdi, Pabna” with an estimated cost of Tk1,485 crore is to develop an ultra-modern hybrid data centre to analyse a huge volume of data.
The centre would increase the security, reliability and operational efficiency of internet services and it will also help boost cloud computing through modern technology and additional spaces.
The Tk1,454 crore project titled “Construction of a Data Centre/ Disaster Recovery Centre (Active-Active AC-DR) at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Hi-Tech Park, Rajshahi aims to develop an active digester recovery infrastructure for tier 4 data centre of BDCCL at Bangabandhu Hi-Tech City at Kaliakair in Gazipur district, revealed the letter.
It would help ensure uninterrupted internet connectivity following any disaster, said ICT-related private entrepreneurs.
They also said that enhancing data storage capacity through new data centres will open new windows of opportunity for businesses regarding cloud computing.
However, they also said that the private enterprises in Bangladesh are spending a huge amount to utilise the storage and servers of foreign companies due to several complexities in using the data centre owned by the government.
They urged the government to ensure a private entity-friendly data centre which would reduce the cost of ICT business and save a huge amount of foreign currencies.
The PDPPs sent to the planning commission revealed that Bangladesh generates a substantial volume of digital data daily, this initiative is poised to meet the escalating demand for storage of approximately 34 Petabytes, processing and analysis of this massive volume of data.
The current state-owned data centres, including the tier 4 national data centre at Kaliakoir, Gazipur, and the national data centre at ICT tower fall short of meeting the demands of nationwide digitisation efforts.
With a staggering volume of paper-based data estimated at around 34 petabytes, these facilities are ill-equipped to handle the scale of digital transformation required.
Moreover, their capabilities are inadequate to provide the computational resources needed for developing cutting-edge applications.
Another PDPP signed by BDCCL Managing Director Md. Ataur Rahman Khan revealed that disaster recovery is paramount for ensuring business continuity.
The national data centres require disaster recovery sites to mitigate risks effectively, the document revealed and emphasised the need for multiple sites to enhance geo-redundancy capabilities.
The recovery centre will ensure uninterrupted cloud data centre service provided by BDCCL through redundant systems at primary and backup sites, mitigating risks of data loss due to adverse weather conditions, seismic disruption and human-induced errors, it further added.
Sayed Almas Kabir, former president of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services said that new data centres would open new opportunities for businesses regarding cloud computing as these would increase the capacity of storage and analysis capacity of digital data.
He said enhancing data storage capacity would facilitate the private ICT firms to shift their server from foreign companies to home, while new data centres would attract global ICT giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon to establish their own servers in Bangladesh.
Data recovery centres are crucial for uninterrupted internet service, said Sayed Almas Kabir who explained that the majority of data centres owned by private firms are located at the Khawaja Tower but these centres have no recovery centres.
Recovery centers would be able to create a backup of all data which would help uninterrupted service restoring all of the data.
AKM Fahim Mashroor, founder of the BDJOBS, the largest job portal in the country, said that the data centres owned by the government in Bangladesh are used by government offices.
He said that the private IT firms in the country are spending a huge amount of money to utilize storage from foreign companies, due to several complexities in the state-owned data centres.
He said that infrastructure created with public money should be easy to access by the private sector to reduce costs of business and save huge foreign currencies.
