STAATSKOERANT, 31 Mei 2024 No. 50741   143 15.1.6.1. Data centres must be built and operated in adherence to environmental legislation and building by-laws. 15.1.6.2. Data centres must not be built in restricted areas such as heritage sites, national key points, or land designated for land reform. 15.1.6.3. Data centres must not be located in areas prone to natural disasters or social disturbances. 15.1.6.4. Data centres must display or be able provide verifiable certification credentials to all potential customers. 15.1.6.5. Data centres used by the government should comply with a fault-tolerant design that provides a minimum uptime of 99.995%. 15.1.6.6. Priority should be given to the self-provision of electricity and water for the operations of data centres to ensure continuous operation and reduce dependency on the national grids. Policy Proposals 15.1.7. Digital infrastructure connectivity must be provided on a universal access service basis and facilitated by both government and private infrastructure providers on a non-discriminatory basis. 15.1.8. Government data shall be stored in a unified cloud-enabled data center, enabling data-sharing, interoperable systems, scalability, and cost-optimization. This infrastructure shall include redundancies in designated locations to meet business continuity requirements, ensuring consistent and reliable access to critical data. 15.1.9. The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) shall be the responsible authority for sourcing data infrastructure and cloud services from industry providers for the government. SITA shall develop and monitor service level agreements to guarantee consistent, reliable, and secure data and cloud services. Additionally, SITA will monitor access to government data through the Minimum Information Security Standards (MISS) and drive the implementation of the government's e-Strategy. 15.1.10. Government departments and entities shall prioritize cloud services as the primary option for new ICT procurement. 15.1.11. Data center operators shall ensure the provision of their own electricity and water supply as backup for their energy and cooling requirements. 21 This gazette is also available free online at www.gpwonline.co.za