On 21 June the European Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice (eu-LISA) successfully completed the relocation of the Central Unit of Eurodac, the IT system supporting processing of asylum applications, from Luxembourg to Strasbourg and Sankt-Johann im Pongau. This finalised the procedure of transferring all the IT systems managed by eu-LISA to its data centres.
The transfer of Eurodac to Strasbourg was a complex multi-stage process encompassing the exact cloning of the configuration of the Eurodac hardware and software for the Central Unit and the Backup Central Unit as well as data transfer by network synchronisation. The new system will run on a new infrastructure which will ensure better reliability of the system and further reduction of the risk of data loss. This solution is highly cost effective as the next version of Eurodac, to be launched in summer 2015, will be able to use over 90% of the existing IT infrastructure.
Until 21 August the initial Eurodac system in Luxembourg will continue to work in parallel to guarantee an additional fall-back solution. Thereafter it will be decommissioned and all personal data destroyed in collaboration with the European Commission who hosted the previous system. eu-LISA will remain in high operational mode and will continue to closely monitor the system's behaviour to confirm its stability.
Background:
EURODAC is the European Dactyloscopy (fingerprints) database. It helps to determine the country responsible for examining applications for asylum and for looking after asylum seekers.
The countries using the system are the EU Member States and non-EU countries Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
