Australian Govt & AWS strike cloud services deal

Australia’s Federal, State and Territory government agencies will now access all AWS Cloud services, after AWS struck a deal with Whole-of-Government Australia to deploy AWS.

Government agencies, public universities, and government-controlled organisations will now access AWS through a simplified procurement model that aims to reduce administrative overheads and to smooth the procurement process.

According to AWS, the Whole-of-Government agreement addresses some of the main barriers of adopting and expanding the use of cloud services, by modernising the way government purchases cloud services and facilitates training.

The deal builds on existing agreements with other public sector organisations, including the Australian Taxation Office, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, La Trobe University, and others.

The Whole-of-Government agreement will also make it easier for members of the AWS Partner Network (APN) to offer consulting and technology services to agencies.

APN members can work with agencies to build and deliver their government-specific solutions, as well as supporting the migration of workloads to AWS.

“This agreement makes it easier for Australian government agencies to procure AWS services and speed time to value,” comments Amazon Web Services Worldwide Public Sector Asia Pacific managing director Peter Moore.

“This new Whole-of-Government procurement agreement with the Commonwealth of Australia greatly simplifies and streamlines government technology procurement by providing government agencies with rapid access to the full portfolio of AWS services in any AWS Region at pre-agreed upon terms.”

“This paves the way for greater innovation by enabling agencies to build and deploy digital services to serve Australians more effectively, transform legacy operations, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs. By eliminating barriers that have traditionally bogged down government technology procurement, the Whole-of-Government agreement enables agencies to invest more time and resources on their core missions, rather than on negotiating contracts.”

AWS explains that the traditional procurement model that uses a fixed price list that can take weeks to update. Under the new model, flexibility encourages ‘experimentation with new ideas to accelerate innovation within government organisations, as well as the ability to deliver new citizen services at a reduced cost’.

The agreement also includes AWS Enterprise Support to provide close guidance and best practices, AWS Professional Services for agencies that need to obtain more guidance on complex projects, and AWS Training to enable agencies’ staff to develop the latest cloud skills.

Additionally, the Whole-of-Government agreement provides agencies with a consistent approach to access and use all the AWS services in any of AWS’s 66 Availability Zones (AZs) spanning 21 Regions around the world, without having to negotiate separate contract terms.

Agencies can use the latest AWS services and features in a self-service, low-administration way.

Combined with the PROTECTED certification awarded by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) in January 2019, this agreement helps government agencies to migrate highly sensitive workloads and applications to the AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region.

Since all agencies will have the same terms, the smallest and largest agencies alike will be able to access the same benefits, and leverage AWS’s industry-leading security capabilities and highly fault-tolerant infrastructure.