Modernising storage to future-proof Singapore’s public sector

Two indicators of an effective digital government are the widespread use of digital services and customer satisfaction. Citizens are more likely to adopt these services if they work well.

As the use of digital services in the public sector increases, so too does the volume and velocity of data generated. With Singapore’s public sector embarking on artificial intelligence (AI) transformation, they will need to get smarter about storage to cope with the new data demands in the AI era.

A cloud-ready data storage infrastructure will help public agencies ensure consistent service delivery, confidently leverage AI, and maintain resilience.

Leaving legacy behind

Modernising the storage environment ensures high availability and performance, allowing developers to keep innovating and improving citizen-focused services.

Such was the case with a government ministry in Singapore seeking a “future-proof, high-performance data infrastructure” that could meet the rising demands for public services, shared Pure Storage’s ASEAN and Greater China Area Vice President, Chua Hock Leng.

Pure Storage worked closely with technology services provider NCS to understand the unique challenges faced by the Singapore government agency, specifically around improving productivity, cost savings, and uptime.

Additionally, the ministry required a strong foundation to implement AI and data-driven innovation, said Chua.

The project required a storage solution with a smaller footprint, high performance, and a simple, intuitive, and reliable operation system to reduce complexity to involve other teams, explained NCS Infrastructure’s Senior Director, Practice Lead for CloudOps, Vicardo Ng.

This meant migrating to an all-flash, power-efficient storage environment that could support more modern and user-focused capabilities.

Ng shared that the ministry adopted solutions that supported a cloud strategy for the AI era, with containerised environments that helped achieve data footprint reduction, allowing IT teams to not worry about running out of space when developers start new projects.

Some agencies still rely on legacy hard disk drive (HDD) storage solutions that “are not built to handle AI workloads”. The outdated structure can cause data fragmentation and hinder real-time data delivery to AI engines, explained Chua.

“The Pure Storage platform provides a unified and integrated data storage and delivery system across various data environments, facilitating seamless management and data access across data centres and the cloud,” he added.

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Making room for AI

A cloud and AI-ready infrastructure is key to remaining future-proof and innovating, which is often challenging with legacy systems, noted Chua.

Such infrastructure ensures that government agencies have the right framework in place to elevate their service delivery and support the public sector’s use of AI.

 “When it comes to data centre deployment, all-flash storage solutions from Pure Storage are a key consideration for infrastructure design,” shared Chua.

Pure Storage’s solutions support AI deployments due to their low latency, high speed, and scalability, empowering organisations to handle growing data volumes resulting from AI adoption and manage complex workloads more efficiently.

“It allows agencies to quickly extract insights from large amounts of unstructured data, with the ability to add more blades as data grows. This boosts capacity, performance, and metadata scale, ensuring seamless support for data-sensitive initiatives,” Chua added.

With this type of infrastructure in place, a cloud-ready data storage architecture complements the task of “future-proofing government agencies in their pursuit of sustainable innovation” by facilitating operations in storage environments and enabling them to explore AI innovations confidently without compromising operations.

Mitigating the energy demands

The energy efficiency of all-flash solutions empowers organisations to move from legacy hard drive systems that demand higher space and cooling demands, enabling them to meet ESG regulations while ensuring high performance and capacity.

As data growth accelerates, the public sector must strive for more energy-efficient storage infrastructures to mitigate these challenges.

A key advantage of flash-based storage systems is that they require 80 per cent less power and space than HDD-based systems. This is important for Singapore’s agencies to stay aligned with the nation’s Green Plan 2030 and achieve their sustainability goals.

In a previous report, 77 per cent of Singapore's public agencies surveyed expressed concern about increasing energy consumption due to AI deployment.

With flash-optimised systems, operators can cut energy consumption up to 85 per cent compared to traditional disk-based storage, shared Chua.

Keeping “sustainability at the top of every design aspect” also means prioritising sustainability at the end of the use cycle by generating less e-waste than competitor solutions, he added.

Prioritising the data infrastructure

The collaboration between NCS and Pure Storage combines NCS’ specialised knowledge on digital transformation for governments and Pure Storage technology to address the evolving needs of the public sector and modernise its data infrastructure.

“We know the challenges that our clients face in regulatory requirements as well as the need to achieve high levels of resiliency and availability while providing modern solutions that enable their business to scale,” shared NCS’ Ng.

This is why achieving a successful digital transformation journey for a government agency requires “working with a competent partner to address the integration design that sets the baseline for a good infrastructure moving forward,” Ng shared.

He added that such reliable infrastructure is the key foundation for success.