Iain Rouse (Amazon Web Services)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) have renewed and enhanced their whole-of-government (WoG) agreement for $174 million.
This is an extension on the 2019 deal enabling federal, state and territory agencies and departments, public universities and government-controlled corporations to access AWS cloud services through a simple contracting model.
Under the enhanced agreement, which takes shape on 1 May, AWS public sector customers can continue to purchase cloud services through the DTA or directly from AWS.
They can also receive the benefits of the WoG agreement even if they purchase through authorised partners on the AWS Partner Network, such as Nextgen Distribution, Shine Solutions and Versent, as well as global system integrators, like PwC and Accenture.
“This centralised agreement lets agencies save costs from the day they sign up, due to the economies of scale achieved from the aggregated procurement agreement. Customers can use it to leverage more than 200 fully-featured AWS cloud services,” AWS public sector Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) country director Iain Rouse said.
“Through the renewed agreement, our public sector customers will continue to enjoy coordinated access to AWS enterprise support for close guidance and best practices and have access to AWS professional services for agencies that need more guidance on complex projects.
“They will also enjoy support delivered through the extensive network of locally-owned cloud software and service vendors from the AWS Partner Network.”
AWS large public sector customers include the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
Other customers have been Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), the National Bank of Australia (NAB), nib insurance, Origin Energy, Telstra, Qantas and Woodside Energy.
Through the WoG agreement, AWS provided the foundation to collect data for the ABS in the 2021 Census of Population, working with PwC to deliver the Census Digital Service.
Geoscience Australia (GA) is another public sector agency which has engaged with AWS since 2015 working on key initiatives such as the establishment and delivery of Digital Earth Australia and Digital Earth Africa capabilities, alongside National Earthquake Alert Centre and Exploring for the Future government initiatives.
Western Australia’s Curtin University is also an example of using the WoG agreement to create a new digital platform foundation enabling automated IT management, provide new digital services for innovation projects and allow data-driven decisions across the university’s services.
Rouse highlighted that as of December 2021,125 AWS cloud services available in the AWS Sydney Region have been assessed by the Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) for operating workloads at the ‘protected’ level.
Nextgen head of cloud Emma Davidson added its role as an AWS Public Sector authorised distributor is to support partners with their go-to-market offering to this sector, own and manage the cloud operations and billing and management of the commercial agreements with AWS.
“The renewed agreement will enable our channel partners to maximise on the economic benefits of reselling AWS services, deepen their engagement and extend their managed and professional services to accelerate innovation for the Australian Government," she said.
Melbourne headquartered Versent CEO Paul Migliorini, said the agreement gives government customers easier access to AWS.
“We look forward to delivering even more flexibility to our customers and seeing the accelerated innovation and development that will be enabled by this agreement,” he added.
