THE Hong Kong Government has decided to upgrade its mainframe disaster recovery facilities with the purchase of a US$1.6 million mainframe computer from Hitachi Data Systems (HDS).
The Development and Disaster Recovery Bureau (DDRB) handles application development and emergency backup for Government departments using IBM or compatible mainframe systems.
According to K. H. Lau, director of the Government's Information Technology Services Department, increased applications load and MIPS (millions of instructions per second) requirements necessitated the upgrade.
'We were looking for enough MIPS and we were looking for compatibility to run all our applications and software,' Mr Lau said.
Departments where there had been a significant increase in mainframe processor loads include, the Education Department, Lands Registry, Immigration Department and Inland Revenue Department.
Described as the first system of its size to be installed in Hong Kong, the new HDS GX 6425 replaces the HDS mainframe installed in 1992.
'We have used HDS for disaster recovery in the past so the people there have long experience of our operating environment,' Mr Lau said.