Department of Information Technology and Electronics, Government of West Bengal (DIT&E, GoWB) was the key and core stakeholder of implementation of various Mission Mode Projects under NeGP and West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Ltd. (WBEIDCL) had been identified as the State Implementing Agency (SIA) towards the support of such implementation. A Composite Team had been formed with the officers from WBEIDCL and National Informatics Center (NIC) for shouldering the responsibility of techno-administrative support of overall SDC operations, management and hosting various departmental applications at SDC.
Now, Webel Technology Limited (WTL), earlier a subsidiary of West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited involves in execution of the work related to e- Governance activities as Nodal Agency, as per decision of the State Government through the change of rules of Business. Webel Technology Limited has now become separate entity under the administrative control of Department of Information Technology & Electronics, Government of West Bengal. Accordingly WB State Data Center activities are now being taken care of by Department of Information Technology & Electronics, Government of West Bengal with Webel Technology Limited as the Nodal Agency. Webel Technology Limited is authorized as both State Nodal Agency (SNA) and State Implementing Agency (SIA) for all e- Governance related activities in place of M/S West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited. A Composite Team has been formed with the officers from WTL and National Informatics Center (NIC) for shouldering the responsibility of techno-administrative support of overall SDC operations, management and hosting various departmental applications at SDC.
The WBSDC is the key-supporting element of e-Government Initiatives & businesses for delivering services to the citizens with greater reliability, availability and serviceability of the Government Departments. SDC facilitates consolidation of services, applications and infrastructure. SDC provides many functionalities and some of the key functionalities are Central data repository, Secure Data Storage, Online Delivery of Services, Citizen Information/Services Portal, State Intranet Portal, Remote Management and Service Integration. As one of the pivotal constituents of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), a series of various Government Departments applications are being hosted at SDC. Since SDC is the one and only repository of data and applications pertaining to the State eGovernance applications, the goal of SDC is to secure the Line Departments data and applications, which is one of the major challenges in these days, and to improve the quality of delivery of services to Business, Government and citizen in particular which can only be delivered through appropriate management of internal operations and back office.
The WBSDC is built upon a floor area of about 400 sq m with a provision for extension of about 120 sq m. The SWAN and WBSDC are based on the latest state-of-art technology with a vigorous architecture having multilevel redundancies, security and scalability with an additional emphasis in three-tier power supply system. The WBSDC complied with a world class Tier II data centre (having redundant capacity components and distribution path serving business continuity) as per TIA 942 standards with a guaranteed service level of 99.749% has a safe, secure, monitored, highly available power and cooling arrangements that is capable of accommodating several racks for network components and servers under centralized and simplified management. WBSDC is on the process of achieving ISO 27001/20000 Standard.
The WBSDC is powered through a separate substation with two different sources of grid power supplies supported with multiple generator sets. A sturdy building management system with fire fighting arrangements, water leak detection system, biometrics for access control, alarms & surveillance, rodent repellent, public address system etc ensures safe and secured operation of WBSDC complying with ISMS standards. The WBSDC is fabricated with a full-bodied network infrastructure complied with both present generation Internet Protocol (IP v4) as well next generation Internet Protocol (IP v6) using Dual-Stack deployment and equipped with multilevel security system including intrusion prevention, demilitarization and two-level firewalling. WBSDC has robust Intranet Backbone coupled with 2 different Upstream Internet Service Providers.
Besides, the Data Centre possesses several servers to cater to shared services over multiple OS platforms with virtualization, viz. Windows, Linux and database management systems such as Oracle, MSSQL etc. The shared services also include power, storage space, local area network, tape library and abundant rack space to accommodate additional servers in the server farm. Facility Management Services (FMS) including routine backup, continuous monitoring of security, servers, network devices, application and database services, immediate resolution of defects and incidents are part and parcel of the 24 x 7 operational infrastructures.
The FMS also includes furnished accommodation for the support personnel to be deployed by the Line Departments for regular support of their infrastructure. Measures are also being taken to create Disaster Recovery Service Centre (DRS) in a different seismic zone and integrate the WBSDC with it in order to maintain absolute business continuity with prevention of any data loss.
Line Departments interested in hosting applications in WBSDC may choose any one of the following hosting models depending on the complexity, criticality and volume of their application: Dedicated, Partially shared, and fully shared hosting models. They need to sign a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with Department of PAR & e-Governance prior to hosting.
Keeping the above in view, it is compulsory for the SDC to adapt to standard practices since its inception which are in vogue in the global scenario. Accordingly, SDC has achieved ISO/IEC 20000:2011 that applies to IT Service Management System for maintaining desired quality of services and ISO/IEC 27001:2005 that applies to security of infrastructure, data and applications of the state. In order to meet the objectives of NeGP keeping the efficient and effective service delivery in mind, SDC is required to collaborate with several stakeholders, particularly the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), the Data Centre Operator, various system integrators of the participating Line Departments and etc. In view of this, it is very pertinent and imperative that the stakeholders do follow certain standards, policies and procedures besides executing certain basic roles and responsibilities in order to avoid confusion in and among the stakeholders.
Since the State Data Centre has already completed 7 years of operation, most of the compute is utilized and would require upgradation. The technology used in the current Data Centre is more than 7 years old and would require refresh to keep up to date for security reasons and as per industry standards.
Currently almost all items of the existing SDC has gone obsolete and was declared out of support by the respective Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and the devices are in very critical condition. In view of the above immediate replacement of the obsolete items is extremely important for smooth operation of WBSDC, part of which have been taken care in the revamping & expansion of State Data Centre which is going on. The Data Centre is currently facing a huge demand from the State User departments for hosting their applications.
In view of the above, it was decided to comprehensively develop an all new Data center in the 2nd Floor of Moni Bhandar Building, Webel Bhavan, Salt Lake, Kolkata. The area of the proposed data center is 5000 Sq.Ft. approximately and it will have an integration with the existing Data Center. The revamping & expansion of SDC is expected to be completed within 6 months.