Unisys to Consolidate 7 Data Centers for Pennsylvania

Unisys will help Pennsylvania consolidate its seven data centers into a single cloud environment in a contract that will be worth as much as $681 million over the first seven years.

Under the terms of the deal, Unisys will host the state’s IT environment in a hybrid cloud out of one of its own data centers. Through the hosted cloud, Pennsylvania will get such services as support for their x86-, Linux- and mainframe-based infrastructures, storage management, security and database services, according to Unisys officials.

In addition, there will be project and contract management—including service desk and configuration management—facilities management and technical services, such as capacity and security management. In addition, Pennsylvania officials will be able to self-provision their resources and will have access to capacity-on-demand computing services, which will enable them to allocate server and storage resources as needed to address changing business requirements, according to officials with Unisys, which has its headquarters in Blue Bell, Pa.

The on-demand and self-provisioning capabilities will be important for state officials, enabling them to use the IT resources they need rather than having to guess at what will be needed in the future, according to the state’s CIO, Tony Encinias.

“Rather than attempting to predict our technology requirements years ahead of time, this contract will allow us to purchase services when we need them, giving us greater flexibility and efficiency while saving money,” Encinias said in a statement.

According to Unisys officials, once the hybrid cloud is fully in place, state agencies throughout Pennsylvania will be able to grow or shrink the IT assets they’re using based on their business needs by provisioning computing resources via a catalog of subscription-based services.

Unisys will partner on the project with IBM and Deloitte Consulting, as well as other tech vendors and Pennsylvania-based companies.