DFAT targets cloud migration under 'discrete' $106m uplift program

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has kicked off the first steps of a multi-year cloud transition as part of a broader $106 million digital transformation program.

The agency has gone to market for a technology provider to migrate a number of legacy on-premises applications to a cloud-hosted environment over a minimum three-year period.

iTnews understands that the project falls under DFAT’s five-year Digital Uplift Program, which was approved in the 2023–24 federal budget.

Outlined in the government’s Major Digital Projects Report 2025 [pdf], the uplift “consists of a high number of discrete projects” focused on government collaboration and cyber security vulnerabilities across DFAT’s global network,

Budgeted at $106.2 million, the program is scheduled for completion by June 30 2028.

“This program, which supports all agencies with a presence overseas, ensuring compliance with federal government cyber security strategy and policy,” according to the report.

When asked for more details about the migration, DFAT was unable to provide further information to iTnews.

However, the agency is a known cloud adopter, becoming the first major federal government agency to trial Microsoft’s protected-level public cloud service in 2018.

At the time, DFAT said it was progressing a program of work that would see it adopt secure cloud services in the form of a protected-level Office 365 environment.

This included an Office 365 tenancy to consume office productivity services such as email and web browsing.

Information about DFAT’s broader cloud journey remains limited.

However, a tender released in October last year offered insight into the department’s recent IT modernisation efforts, which have focused on enhancing cyber security capabilities, replacing legacy infrastructure, and upgrading end-user devices and mobile computing platforms.

The tender revealed that the next phase would focus on application cloud migration, identity and access management to enable DFAT to move closer to a zero trust architecture.