Australian Government reaches cloud agreement with AWS
The Australian Government has announced the arrangement of a sourcing agreement with cloud computing platform Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The volume sourcing agreement will apply across the whole of the Australian government and is said to bring savings for both government and taxpayers. The deal comes after the establishment of similar agreements with the likes of SAP, Microsoft, Concur and IBM.
Interviewed in ZDNet, AWS Worldwide Public Sector Asia Pacific regional managing director Peter Moore said: "What has got in the way of the adoption of cloud has been, I would say, legacy arrangements, legacy ways of thinking about how do you procure and use cloud, moving away from that fixed price or even pay up front context to a more of a pay-as-you-go model. That sort of capability comes through really a state of maturity for the Australian government in realising that cloud computing is very different from traditional IT and this procurement mechanism ... is an example of the maturity of thinking around procurement, which is sometimes lagging from the actual adoption of cloud.”
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In a 27 June press release put out by the Department of Human Services, the deal was said to offer the opportunity for SMEs to assist agencies in cloud adoption. Those agencies will in turn gain easier access to cloud services.
Minister for Government Services, Stuart Robert, said: “The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) continues to expand whole-of-government volume sourcing agreements to ensure government agencies have ready access to the best pricing, terms and conditions. Government agencies regularly engage AWS services, each with separate contracts. The new arrangement represents an opportunity to provide cost reductions through efficiencies of scale. Over a number of years, aggregated procurement has allowed us to leverage the bulk-buying power of the government to negotiate consistent and improved terms and conditions.”
