Another important step was taken for the implementation of the flagship project SYZEYXIS II, with a total budget of 620 million euros, which has been identified by the State as a project of high economic and technological importance for the digital transformation of the Public Sector.
Specifically, it was announced by the “Information Society”, which as the executive arm of the Ministry of Digital Governance implements the entire project on behalf of the General Secretariat for Public Administration Information Systems (G.S.I.S.), the completion of the interconnection of the two central nodes of SYZEYXIS II, SIX1 (Koropi) and SIX2 (Chania), with the nodes of the Hellenic Internet Exchange (GR-IX).
This interconnection is an important milestone in the execution of the contract of Subproject 4 of “SYZEYXIS II” – “Central Network Interconnection Infrastructure (SIX) and Data Centre Infrastructure”, which has been implemented since July 2019 and is now in Phase 4 of the configuration of the central infrastructure located in each data centre (SIX1 amp SIX2).
The central nodes SIX1 and SIX2 constitute the means of interconnection both between the 34,000 buildings and the 55,000 wireless island users (traffic “onnet”) and between other networks of the Greek Internet Exchange (GR-IX) (traffic “offnet”) and as such will manage all traffic of the SYZEYXIS II operators from and to the Greek sites. As part of the project, the contractor “TI Sparkle” implemented two separate connections between the SIX nodes (one connection for each node) and the GRIX infrastructure. The two nodes SIX 1 and SIX 2 operate by design in “active-active” mode which means that in case of failure of one of the two links, all SYZEYXIS II traffic to GR-IX will be automatically routed through the second one. The initial interconnection was implemented with a capacity of 10Gbps for each of the 2 nodes, and future expansion is already planned.
SIX is the evolution of the existing core network of SYZEYXIS I, but also the infrastructure through which the communication between the islands of SYZEYXIS II, the interconnection with third networks, with the Internet and other services available centrally.
At the same time, in line with the overall project schedule, I.S. MAE proceeds with the execution of the programme contracts and the implementation of the whole SYZEYXIS II, which consists of five main Subprojects that present a high degree of synergy and interoperability between them.
The General Manager of Projects of I.S. M.A.E., Mr. Dimitris Giantsis after this important implementation highligted that: “The interconnection of SYZEYXIS II to GRIX is another important “victory” in the struggle for the implementation of this mega-project. As the implementation of the 33 contracts signed so far progresses, the technological and operational complexity of the project becomes more and more apparent. However, the team of I.S. MAE in close cooperation with the contractors of the projects and our partners is “running” at high speed in order to reach very soon the pilot and then the productive operation of SYZEYXIS II”.
SYZEYXIS II concerns the creation of a single interconnection network of the information systems of the Public Sector with the main objective of providing a set of upgraded telecommunication services and infrastructure to all General Government entities for three consecutive years, thus providing coverage to approximately 34,000 points of presence housing public sector entities.
From a technological point of view, SYZEYXIS II will replace the telecommunications network equipment in the whole of the public sector, over which the upgraded speeds (up to 1Gbps) that will serve the operators will “pass”. In addition, it will cover the telephony needs of the Public Sector, in fixed and mobile telephony, with free calls between network operators, while offering a number of advanced digital services to public officials with high security.
