Canberra Data Center Planned for SAP

SAP announced in mid-November that it plans to establish a new Australia data center. The company expects to invest more than $130 million into the Canberra data center in order to enhance its service offerings and cloud platform capabilities for government clients in the country. SAP currently works with 50 government agencies and hopes to increase that number.

The investment will be spread over a five-year period and will go toward the creation of a campus in Canberra as well as an on-site data center to house SAP's HANA Enterprise Cloud platform. The Canberra data center will be known as the SAP Institute for Digital Government.

Australian authorities announced in October that departments will be pushed to utilize cloud computing going forward in order to take advantage of the technology's cost benefits. Damien Bueno, general manager of federal government and defense for SAP Australia and New Zealand, said that the new facility will serve to encourage government agencies to increase their use of emerging technology.

"We anticipate government addressing the under investment in ICT that has occurred over the last seven or eight years and see some large programs on the horizon…" said Bueno. "The decision to do this had its genesis in the late part of 2012 and our decision has been supported by recent government decisions regarding cloud."

Bueno went on to say that the new facility will likely create 250 jobs, including solution architects and developers.

SAP currently operates 14 data centers around the world, with another six planned to be opening soon. The company already established an operation in Australia this year, opening a Sydney data center in April. The new Canberra data center is expected to open in the second quarter of 2015.