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Bangladesh sticks IT eggs in one basket

by on02 October 2014



Places basket in earthquake zone

The Bangladesh Ministry of Information thinks that it would be a wizard wheeze to put all its government data in one Tier 4 data centre in Kaliakair, in the Gazipur region. It would be the fifth largest data centre in the world, if completed. The new facility will cost Euro 5 million and is intended at least partly for storage of government information.

The site has been chosen on the basis that the government can get hold of some land fairly cheap which no one seems to want. The reason is that, is that the region is prone to earthquakes. One nearby earthquake seven months ago in Ranir Bazar (3.8), and no less than ten within the same tectonic zone over the last three years, the largest of which measured 4.5 on the Richter scale.

According to committee chief Ashraful Islam has promised that precautions would be taken against earthquakes we guess that would include lots of prayers, given that no site has ever been earthquake proof and data centres are particularly vulnerable to them. According to the Dhaka Tribune, the government would be better off siting the data centre at the Jessore ICT Park which has a minimal risk of flood or earthquakes.

The site will depend on foreign users to make cash, but no foreigner would be daft enough to stuff their data onto a computer which might be swallowed up into a big hole in the ground if an earthquake god gets antsy. Bangladesh’s Information and Communication Technology Division State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak has reportedly visited the site several times in the company of senior executives from the ZTE Corporation, who will be the project’s suppliers. Apparently the earth did not move for him.

The new data centre will fall under the aegis of a governmental partnership between Bangladesh and China, though no financial details have been released.

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