Digital Canberra to "refresh" private cloud platform

Digital Canberra is looking at its future options for a private cloud platform currently run on VMware software and Dell hardware, as warranty expiry for much of the underlying hardware approaches.

The relatively new ACT government directorate is home to “digital technology, data and security systems across ACT government” as well as “Canberra’s strategy for a connected digital future”.

One of its capabilities is the ACT compute hosting platform, effectively a private cloud, that will require a “refresh”.

Digital Canberra recently revealed that “the majority of the ACT compute platform reaches warranty expiry between March and September 2027, with only a subset of newer Dell MX760c blade server infrastructure remaining supported until July 2029.”

“Continuing operation beyond the current hardware lifecycle will increase the risk of hardware failure, reduced vendor supportability, increased operating costs and place constraints on future virtualisation platform upgrades from the current VMWare Cloud Foundations (VCF) platform,” it said.

A Digital Canberra spokesperson was unable to provide any additional detail on which architectural components of the platform come up for renewal or refresh next year, citing a current request for information process that is now underway.

However, the need for future options is driven both by warranty pressures and the criticality of the platform to ACT government digital services delivery.

“The VCF platform is a critical ACT government shared service supporting approximately 1400 virtual machines across four environments [three data centres and a virtual infrastructure testing capability],” it said.

“These underpin a significant number of business and citizen-facing digital services.

“The ACT government is seeking to establish the most appropriate method to maintain the capability provided from these environments.”

Digital Canberra said that the refresh program already had a “defined budget”.

“We are engaging with industry to understand what industry can realistically deliver against the budget based on current market costs,” it said.

“The ACT government is seeking options to deliver the most pragmatic and cost-effective solution to ensure this platform remains operable and supportable into the future.”

Digital Canberra’s budget statement for 2026-27 notes that one of the directorate’s priorities this financial year is to “consolidate the ACT Government’s technology footprint by prioritising fewer, scalable whole-of-government platforms that deliver full function capabilities while maintaining 

the agility to adapt and implement change efficiently.”