ASG ends Unisys' 20-year run at ANAO

One of the longest running outsourcing arrangements across the federal government has slipped through Unisys’ fingers.

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has selected IT services provider ASG to support its secure cloud and workplace as-a-service needs over the next three years.

The $11.2 million deal will see the agency ditch its onsite IT infrastructure provided by incumbent Unisys for a “tailored set of ‘as a service’ offerings” from ASG.

Unisys has provided the agency with IT services since a whole-of-government IT outsourcing initiative was introduced in 1997, requiring agencies to farm out mainframe services, midrange systems, distributed and desktop operations, support services and data networks.

That contract was scheduled to expire at the end of last month, but was recently extended to September.

The new deal covers “service desk, desktop, security and service management services and ‘Infrastructure as a Service’,” ASG said in a statement.

A spokesperson told iTnews that its IaaS platform was certified to a protected level security classification on the Australian Signals Directorate's cloud list, as requested by ANAO.

The agency will also use the deal to transition to an “activity-based working model” where auditors can work security from wherever their auditing takes them.

The ANAO has been working to replace its current arrangement with an as-a-service delivery model for the last 18 months.

It went to market for a new IT service provider last August to shift from “ANAO owned infrastructure to value-adding business services”.

The market approach is understood to be only the second time that the agency has put the contract up for competitive tender.

ASG was also recently picked to deploy a secure cloud under an $84 million deal in April, with Vault Systems providing the infrastructure out of Canberra Data Centres.