Government Computer News has revealed that The Homeland Security Department has announced plans to select a vendor this summer to build a second cross-agency data center, and has directed prospective contractors to propose locations in the Western US to help shield the facility from any major East Coast electricity blackout.
According to department procurement documents and industry sources, the department is in a downselection phase to pick the contractor for the planned data center. The department likely will announce a task order award for the second data center this summer, according to Input of Reston, Virginia.
DHS is managing the acquisition under the Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge solutions umbrella contracts. The department began the acquisition process last July with a request for information from vendors about the project.
DHS already has one cross-agency data center, operated at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi in cooperation with the Naval Oceanographic Office.
The second data center will use "active-active or mirroring technology to continuously synchronize with the Stennis center. That technology would allow the second center to take over from the Mississippi facility immediately in the event of a complete power failure or other disaster.
Accordingly, DHS seeks to protect its planned new data center from the possibility that a power failure could affect all of the Eastern Interconnect by choosing a site for its second data center in either of the two remaining interconnects:
ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas or the Texas Interconnect
WSSC the Western Systems Coordinating Council or the Western Interconnect
Both of the other interconnects are much more independent of each other and the Eastern Interconnect, a factor that helps suppress the possibility of a nationwide power failure.