Macquarie Data Centres, part of Macquarie Telecom Group, said that its Sydney data centres in the Macquarie Park Data Centre Campus and Sydney Central have achieved the Certified Strategic designation under the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) Hosting Certification Framework.
The latest certification by the DTA confirms that Macquarie Data Centres’ facilities has the requisite capability to support government information up to Top Secret classification with full redundancy at the Certified Strategic level, according to a report in Defence Connect Australia.
The Certified Strategic designation is further proof that the company’s portfolio of local data centres provides the highest levels of security with the lowest risk profile when supporting government workloads, said David Hirst, Macquarie Data Centres group executive.
“Our facilities provide both the assurance of redundancy capability and Zone 4 level security to government, with the option to extend to Zone 5, which are crucial elements when it comes to hosting sensitive information,” Hirst said.
“The Certified Strategic listing of our portfolio is further proof that Macquarie Data Centres is rising to the evolving expectations of private and public sector customers. We are constantly investing in building new facilities to meet the growing need for secure, sovereign and equipped facilities to host sensitive information, as evidenced by our recent announcement to build our largest data centre yet within our Macquarie Park Data Centre Campus – Intellicentre 3 Super West (IC3SW),” added Hirst.
The framework is designed to provide government agencies clear guidelines as to the security credentials, capabilities, and corporate ownership and controls of data centre providers servicing Australian government agencies.
The locations of Macquarie’s data centres are strategically positioned to offer maximum redundancy, minimal latency and geo diversity for cloud workloads.
This development follows Strategic Certification of Macquarie’s Canberra data centres, IC4 and IC5, in June. Also, this certification of the Macquarie’s Sydney data centres puts it into a league of certified providers that are able to provide multiple availability zones in two or more locations.
This development also needs to be seen in the context of recent commitments made by Maquarie, in anticipation of strong uptake in its cyber security, cloud and government business.
The company sees strong demand for cyber security solutions in its Government and Cloud Services businesses and will be making significant investments in FY22 to realise this opportunity, Macquarie said in its financial year 2020-21 earnings.