Diegem, 15 November 2018 - From now on, the Flemish Parliament will make an external back-up of its data and will therefore choose the LCL data center in Diegem. In addition, the government institution has its own fully synchronized data centers. In this way the parliament is better armed against disaster scenarios. The connection with the Flemish Glass network, which ensures ultra-fast data communication, convinced the Flemish Parliament.

The Flemish Parliament makes an extra backup of the parliamentary data in the LCL data center in Diegem. By transferring the data to LCL, the Flemish Parliament has the shortest connection to a Tier 3 data center with access to Flemish Glass, the glass fiber network of the Flemish Government.

For security reasons, the data from the Flemish Parliament are now stored in three locations. "We needed a physically separated, secured and insured server room in terms of redundancy and power interruption, so that in the event of a disaster at one location, we still have a backup," says Kurt De Vriendt, director of the Facility Services, Infrastructure and Computer Science Directorate. from the Flemish Parliament. “The third data center had to be far enough away from our existing data centers. You never know that a calamity will happen in Brussels that will paralyze both data centers, or the connection between them. We must be able to count on the back-up and we can do that at LCL. "

"Because our data is constantly being copied to the backup, a very good data connectivity with a sufficiently large bandwidth is needed," continues De Vriendt. “LCL in Diegem has the Flemish fiber optic network that enters the data center via two separate roads. Moreover, this solution turned out to be the most advantageous for us. ”

The tender was conducted through the VITO framework contract from Securitas, which many other Flemish institutions already use. This means that the administrative part can run faster, because they are no longer charged with tenders or requests for tenders. "We were given the opportunity to purchase a wide range of IT services through the VITO framework contract," says De Vriendt. "When we saw what the LCL contract had to offer, there was an instant match."

LCL sees opportunities for the future with the arrival of the Flemish Parliament. “At LCL, the Flemish Parliament can collaborate with other government institutions, such as the VRT and the federal government. Because they are also present in our data center, you can quickly link from one environment to another via short connections. That gives the Flemish Parliament additional opportunities, "says Michiel Hoffmann, business developer for government at LCL.