Funded by European funds and managed by the General Directorate for Communications and Information Technology (GDCIT) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, project „Electronic Services Supply Centre” is the core of the digitization of public services in MIA. Publicly accessible to hub.mai.gov.ro, is a portal that, upon completion, will integrate over 90 online services from various public institutions, from the issuance of the criminal record and online appointments for the issuance of the passport, to obtaining approvals for urbanism and spatial planning documentation. In February 2024, the HUB already had over 400,000 registered users, citizens with digital identity, and had generated over 5 million hits in the last 12 months.

A less visible aspect of the MIA HUB is the physical infrastructure of the data centre on which the entire project is based. The General Directorate for Communications and Information Technology (GDCIT) assumed from the start for this project a completely redundant physical infrastructure, according to the Tier 3 standard of the Uptime Institute, one of the most appreciated and used in the private sector. Carried out together with Tema Energy, partner of the winning consortium in the tender, the fitting-out works of the MIA HUB data centre included the modernization of the building, the installation of electrical and air conditioning equipment, as well as, fire detection and extinguishing systems, IT infrastructure, etc.

“The MIA HUB project has become the core of digitalization within the Ministry of Internal Affairs and one of the pillars of cloud architecture that will support in the long run the electronic services we offer to our citizens. It is a data centre built in line with the Tier 3 standards, for which we have assumed a very high level of availability, similar to the best performing data centres in the private sector.”

Răzvan Jiga, General Director, GDCIT – Ministry of Internal Affairs

About the General Directorate for Communications and Information Technology (GDCIT)

The General Directorate for Communications and Information Technology is the central specialized unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs that ensures the organization, coordination and control of the ministry’s activity in the field of communications and information technology. In this capacity, GDCIT acts as an integrator, having its own team of specialists certified on multiple technologies.

Origin and project development:

The construction of a centralized HUB for all electronic services is an old objective within the MIA, which has become clearer with the increased digitalization of society. At the same time, the GDCIT management has also become aware of the need for a high-performance Data Centre to support these services and ensure their availability 24/7/365. The existence of the Competitiveness Operational Programme (COP) generated the opportunity to finance such a complex project, a moment that overlapped with the maturation of cloud technologies and virtualization.

Based on these considerations, the MIA carried out between 2019-2023 the project „HUB Services (Electronic Services Supply Centre) in MAI”, co-financed by the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund through the Competitiveness Operational Programme 2014-2020.

The overall objective of the project was to simplify the access of the citizens and the private sector to the services provided by MIA, as well as to optimize the necessary IT support. On this level, the project included the fitting-out of the Data Centre building on the basis of a project to modernize and equip an existing building, as well as equipping it with the IT equipment necessary for operation. In order to achieve the specific operational continuity objectives, the data centre was designed so as to comply with the requirements of the international standard TIER 3. The design and construction works were won, by public tender, by Tema Energy.

“We have a long collaboration with Tema Energy, a company with which we have developed several projects. We relied on the expertise of Tema team for all the stages of the MIA HUB project, from analysis and design to the integration of state-of-the-art technologies. But most of all, we have relied on the experience of Tema specialists in overcoming all obstacles and finding the most appropriate technical and legal solutions necessary to comply with the current regulations and standards.”

Răzvan Jiga, General Director GDCIT.

For this project, Tema Energy has allocated a team with over 20 years of experience in the Data Centres industry, which holds many international and local accreditations: Uptime Institute, TUV TSI, EN 50600, ANRE, AGFR, ISU, IGPR, together with specialists in architecture, construction, communications and IT infrastructure of Ness and Dataware consortium partners.

Components:

An important element in the project was the complete modernization of the building that was going to host the Data Centre. In this phase, Tema Energy has followed the civil works of arranging all the technical rooms to comply with the most demanding standards in the field of fire and theft protection. Special rooms have been arranged for IT equipment, staging, transformer stations, UPS and extinguishing systems, pumps and hydraulics, monitoring and security, offices, etc.

At physical infrastructure level of the Data Centre, the following components were developed as well:

• Complex electrical installations to ensure a 2N redundancy, which included: general panels equipped with batteries for reactive energy compensation, high-power generator sets, equipped with external fuel tanks, modular UPS systems, PDUs (distribution bars) with monitoring that supports a load of more than 7 kW per rack.

This load capacity on the rack is an adjustment to current technological requirements and needs, allowing the efficient use of energy and maximizing the performance of IT equipment.

• Structured cabling systems for connecting all rooms and IT racks, designed to be able to connect with maximum performance any kind of IT equipment at a later time.
• Air conditioning systems based on high-capacity chillers, with intelligent free cooling that ensures maximum energy efficiency. The configuration of hydraulic systems and pumps complies with the requirements of Tier III and allows to change any component without affecting the operation of the cooling system. Internal air conditioning units that use underfloor discharge, having a redundant system for both IT cameras and for UPS rooms and suppliers. To increase energy efficiency and optimize the cooling of IT equipment, racks were arranged in islands that separate the flows of cold and hot air. Also, inside the cold corridors, Active Floor grilles equipped with fans were integrated. All IT racks are equipped with a certified anti-seismic system, tested and homologated in some of the most active seismic areas in the world, such as Japan and California.

At the same time, the office and monitoring area is equipped with a centralized low-consumption air conditioning system, which uses the WindFree technology, to ensure the optimal comfort of the personnel.

• Dual fire detection and extinguishing system with ultra-fast suction detection in the IT rooms and inert gas extinguishing. This gas provides an effective and safe method to extinguish fires, minimizing losses and protecting critical equipment from damage in an emergency.
• Complex security systems both perimetral and at racks level. These systems allow authorisation and monitoring of access to critical equipment and cables, ensuring that only authorised personnel is allowed to interact with them.
• Accidental liquid/flood detection system, as an essential measure to comply with industry standards and to ensure high infrastructure security. This system constantly monitors possible fluid leakage, immediately alerting the personnel responsible in the event of such situations, thus contributing to maintain a safe and functional environment within the data centre.

According to the contractual requirements, the MIA HUB data centre complies with the Tier 3 standard defined by the Uptime Institute, which means a guaranteed availability of 99.982% (about 1.6 possible inoperative hours in a year). The Data Centre will be able to support the delivery of digital services to citizens on a 24/7/365 basis, as well as their long-term development offering scalability, testing environments, access to superior processing power. After the completion of the works, the Data Centre was taken over by the GDCIT team, which ensures its operation, benefiting from support and maintenance services from Tema Energy.

“Together with Tema Energy, in the MIA HUB project, we developed a modern data centre, which allowed us to exceed the indicators assumed by the initial funding. We have a very performant IT infrastructure, capable of supporting 10 times more online services than today, including Artificial Intelligence processes. Moreover, the MIA HUB integrates state-of-the-art DataCentre technologies and is ready for the future growth of capacity and density on the rack by adding new power and cooling components”.

Răzvan Jiga, General Director, GDCIT – Ministry of Internal Affairs