Written answers

Tuesday, 22 November 2011

Department of Justice, Equality and Defence

Information Technology

8:00 pm

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 392: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of computer servers that are leased by his Department and each State agency under the aegis of his Department; and the amount of capacity on each server; the cost of maintaining these servers and the steps being taken to reduce this cost; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35517/11]

Photo of Alan ShatterAlan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Neither my Department, the Irish Prison Service nor Financial Shared Services lease any servers. The management of servers within agencies of my Department currently not availing of the IT Shared Service is an operational matter for the agencies concerned and is not a function for which I have responsibility.

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 393: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of computer servers that are owned by his Department and each State agency under his aegis; the amount of capacity on each server; the cost of maintaining these servers; the steps being taken to reduce this cost; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35533/11]

Photo of Alan ShatterAlan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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My Department's IT Division provides a centralised IT Shared Service to approximately 2,000 direct customers in the Department across 27 national and international locations using 234 servers (both physical and virtual). The capacity of individual servers varies widely depending on the role and function of that server. In general the servers behind the Shared Service would have a cumulative capacity of between 30 and 60 terabytes depending on configuration and deployment.

Capacity can be supplemented by Storage Area Networks. Hardware maintenance costs for these servers currently amount to approx €30,000 per annum. The steps being taken to reduce these costs include an ongoing process of virtualisation of physical servers with resultant savings in energy costs. This work will continue with additional virtual servers being deployed as physical servers require replacement. An Enterprise Architectural Review will be undertaken to seek further consolidation of services across the Department and the wider Justice Sector.

In addition to the IT Shared Service, two areas of my Department maintain a separate IT infrastructure. Financial Shared Services in Killarney, which obtains its own desktop services from the Shared Service, operates a payroll and payments system using 34 servers with a capacity of 17 terabytes. Hardware maintenance costs for these servers currently amount to approx €24,000 per annum.

The Irish Prison Service has 169 servers. Given the timescale it has not been possible to get the individual capacity of each machine however the total aggregated storage capacity across all IPS servers is 21 TB. Irish Prison Service has no maintenance costs as all servers are covered under warranty. The management of servers within agencies of my Department currently not availing of the IT Shared Service is an operational matter for the agencies concerned and is not a function for which I have responsibility.

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