The Digital Transformation Agency has renewed the federal government’s cloud sourcing arrangement with Amazon Web Services for another three years at a cost of $174.1 million.
The three-year contract, published on Thursday, extends the existing whole-of-government deal with the hyperscale cloud provider that would otherwise have expired at the end of this month.
According to the Commonwealth procurement website AusTender, the original deal has grown tenfold since May 2019, climbing from $39 million at signing to $390.8 million.
The renewed deal, which will run until May 2025, will provide access to more than 200 AWS cloud services using a “simplified contracting model” that uses economies of scale.
It will continue to be mandatory across the federal government, but will also be available to the states and territories, as well as to universities and government-owned corporations, on a case-by-case basis.
AWS A/NZ public sector country director Iain Rouse said the “enhanced” agreement would also allow entities to “purchase... through authorised partners on the AWS Partner Network” for the first time.
“This will ensure our public sector customers in Australia will maintain easy access to our reliable and secure cloud services as well as provide greater choice in how they procure,” he said.
Partners include consulting giants PwC and Accenture and local players Nextgen, Shine Solutions and Versent, giving them additional firepower when bidding for federal government deals.
A spokesperson for the Digital Transformation Agency told iTnews agencies that use the arrangement also have access to an AWS cloud training program.
The program, which is also available to those on the Australian Public Service Commission’s digital profession, “aims to uplift digital capability across government”, the spokesperson said.
AWS cloud services are currently used by a range of agencies at the federal level, including the Australian Taxation Office, Australian Bureau of Statistics, CSIRO, ASIC and Geoscience Australia.
Curtin University in Western Australia also used the arrangement to stand up an AWS platform that will soon host its entire IT infrastructure.
AWS was one of the first four cloud service providers to be ‘certified strategic’ under the federal government’s hosting certification framework last year.
Other certified strategic cloud service providers include Microsoft, Vault Cloud, AUCloud, Sliced Tech and Kyndryl.
