Canada’s federal government has announced plans to refurbish an existing data center, the Macdonald-Cartier data centre which is adjacent to Ottawa airport, at a cost of $c100m.

This new facility will be designed to test programs before they go live. This will be the first refurbishnment in a series of seven data centers which the Ottawa federal government is carrying out as a massive overhaul of government IT.

The refurbishment program is designed to save costs, tighten cyber-security and make government services more responsive. 

The original was built in 1989, and a 2011 engineering report found that “a substantial amount of retrofit is required … to meet the government agency in charge, Shared Services Canada’s (SSC) power and capacity requirements,” according to the president of SSC, talking earlier this year. The building is expected to be finished in the summer or fall of 2016.

Similar work on expanding a data centre at CFB Borden is expected to cost up to $150 million, according to government documents. The government plans to partner with the private sector to expand and operate the facility. The contract will be awcarded this month when companies will apply to qualify to bid for work. The government has multi-year contracts with Bell Canada and IBM Canada for data centers in Gatineau and Barrie, respectively.

SSC is determined to achieve best value for the government of Canada and Canadians.