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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

IT firm feels left out after MPI picks Ontario for data centre

By: Martin Cash

Posted: 04/20/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

MANITOBA Public Insurance is moving its data centre to Ontario, disappointing players in the local information technology sector who hoped it might have been the catalyst for a home-grown cloud computing facility.

MPI has contracted with IBM to provide mirror data storage in two facilities in Markham and Barrie, Ont.

Brian Smiley, a spokesman for the Crown corporation auto insurer, said after the corporation evaluated its information technology (IT) needs, they were determined to be antiquated.

"We considered the financial resources required to bring it up to speed and looked for options," he said "We looked at Manitoba vendors at the time and unfortunately, no one was able to meet our needs."

Dave Reid, CEO of Winnipeg's Epic Information Solutions, had hoped the MPI data centre would be the catalyst for a large-scale data centre for cloud computing. (Cloud computing can mean different things, but generally it is the delivery of computing services with shared resources and software provided to computers over the Internet. Often it includes massive computer server 'farms.')

"The challenge with cloud computing is that it is a multi-tenancy type environment," Reid said. "It's like building a skyscraper. No one starts building until you have an anchor tenant."

Reid said that in Manitoba, where about half of all spending on IT is done by the public sector, a company such as MPI would have been an ideal anchor tenant.

Reid said he believes MPI is making the right move in taking steps to upgrade the security and management of its data by moving to a cloud-computing scenario, but he wishes there had been more of an effort to find a made-in-Manitoba solution.

"Being that they are a Manitoba Crown corporation with 100 per cent of their customers in Manitoba... wouldn't it be prudent to explore that (a Manitoba solution) in lengthy detail?" he said. "It is a little frustrating."

Smiley said the process, which will take about 18 months to complete, was initiated after a power outage a few years ago. It knocked out MPI's data centre at its Cityplace offices and the backup generator did not perform the function it was designed to do.

The contract with IBM will ensure MPI records for the more than 900,000 vehicles registered in the province and more than 770,000 licensed drivers will be stored in two different facilities, so if there is a catastrophic failure in one site, the same data will be available in the other.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 20, 2012 B4

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