National Telecom (NT) has partnered with Supernap Thailand, a data centre service provider, to upgrade its national data centres and cloud services, and ensure 100% uptime of cloud service usage among government agencies.
They signed a three-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) for cooperation yesterday. The move is expected to drive the quality, safety and reliability of the government cloud in line with the country's digital growth of more than 20% per year on average, which has been accelerated by the pandemic.
NT acting president Group Captain Somsak Khaosuwan said there has been a dramatic increase in the use of applications for government agencies, including those to accommodate remote work and video conferencing. There is a need to manage, keep and access the information in a secure and efficient manner.
NT, which was formed through the merger of CAT Telecom and TOT, is a key agency assigned to support digital transformation among state agencies while being in charge of the Government Data Centre and Cloud Service (GDCC) to provide cloud services for state agencies.
NT now has 13 data centres, and 700 state agencies, involving 23,000 virtual machines (VMs), are capitalising on the GDCC capacity.
Apart from services for state agencies, NT also provides services for 300 private companies with more than 500 VMs.
Gp Capt Somsak said the MoU is a win-win solution between the two parties. The move will support all the ministries, departments and agencies to have secure and efficient access to the information needed in the government's cloud with advanced technology and scalability.
According to him, there is also the chance that Supernap's customers will select NT's data centres as their data recovery sites.
NT has strength in telecom networks and internet gateways, which could potentially attract tech companies to use its services for servers or cloud edge computing.
Sunita Bottse, chief executive of Supernap Thailand, indicated that the cooperation will help save time and resources and cut infrastructure costs for NT while boosting the government's efficiency.
The cooperation allows NT to provide 100% uptime of cloud services for government agencies under certified international Tier IV standards, she said.
"Our facility has been built to support governments and corporates while our services are made to facilitate the storage, and process the mission-critical data assets with the highest security and no downtime," said Ms Bottse.
Through Supernap's infrastructure and solutions, she said the government could achieve a higher international standard for data centres and cloud services, reinforcing Thailand's reputation as a digital and technological hub at a global level and ensuring security, reliability, speed, and scale on demand.