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Whitehorse considers sole sourcing data storage

City staff are recommending that Whitehorse City Council sole-source a contract to give the city more data storage space.

City staff are recommending that Whitehorse City Council sole-source a contract to give the city more data storage space.

According to a report to council presented March 20 the city needs to buy a new data storage unit with more than 100 terabytes of space to hold its financial data, mapping data, and data from the Canada Games Centre.

The city currently has three Nimble brand storage units to replace. The first two, bought in 2012, have a combined capacity of 34 terabytes. That’s about 60 times larger than a normal computer hard drive, according to the report. A third 24-terabyte unit was bought in 2013, the report says.

“Aside from nearing end-of-life for the two Nimble units from 2012, the 2013 unit is also projected to be at 73 per cent to 89 per cent capacity around the second or third quarter of 2017.”

The report says buying something other than a new Nimble unit to replace the old ones is not ideal.

“Due to the very specific nature of this technology investment and the desire to ensure compatibility and prevent corruption of critical data, (the department) prefers to continue utilizing Nimble as the city’s enterprise data storage platform.”

The new unit is expected to cost $108,000. It would normally be more than twice that, but the city has been able to negotiate a lower price thanks to applied credits and special government pricing.

Council will vote on whether to allow the sole-sourced contract next week.