On April 2, members of the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Information Technology joined State Chief Information Officer Chris Estes and members of his team from the Office of Information Technology in western North Carolina for a tour of the state’s Western Data Center (WDC). The Data Center tour was led by Craig Beck, Director of Data Center Services, and Ralph Tallent, Site Manager for the WDC.
The Western Data Center was built in response to a 2005 statewide Business Impact Analysis that identified the need for a fully redundant, round-the-clock disaster recovery capability. Construction on the Western Data Center began in September 2006 and was completed on time and within budget in October 2007. The Western Data Center is a 53,000 square foot Tier 3 facility that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It offers service delivery and service availability with operational support, allowing North Carolina to keep data recovery operations, money and jobs in our state.
Following the trip to the Western Data Center, members of the Committee toured the Facebook Data Center in Forest City. The Oversight Committee held its regular meeting Thursday, April 3, in the PORTAL building on the campus of UNC-Charlotte, followed by a tour of the Microsoft Campus in Charlotte. The tours are part of the Committee’s initiative to visit data centers across the state to learn more about the facilities and the data industry in North Carolina.