A US city of about 280,000 residents has brought online a new data center, completing a relocation and upgrade project partially paid for by federal stimulus funds.

According to a statement by Juniper, one of the vendors that supplied equipment for the project, the new Savannah, Ga., data center is now fully operational, providing IT resources to more than 2,400 city employees. The city purchased networking gear from Juniper, including routers, switches, firewall solutions and VPN appliances.

The US government awarded about $1.12 million from funds set aside by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to the city at the end of September. The grant was issued for data center upgrade and for improvements at a visitor center.

City officials estimated the data center relocation and upgrade project to cost about $970,000.

A memo issued by the Savanna city manager's office said the project's purpose was to increase disaster-recovery capabilities of the city's IT infrastructure and to boost energy efficiency. Besides new networking equipment, the project included a new cooling system. The city's goal was for the project to increase its data center's energy-efficiency rating from 35.6 percent to 73.7 percent.

Jointly with network service and solution providers Layer 3 and Tropos Networks, Juniper will also power the city's wireless network. It will serve public safety and education systems, as well as suburban and lower-income neighborhoods, tourist areas and beaches.

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