NSW gov creates protected data hosting panel

The NSW government has created a dedicated panel arrangement for departments and agencies to source private or community cloud services for protected-level public sector data.

The ‘protective security policy framework zone three colocation services panel’ was established last week to complement existing services through Government Data Centre (GovDC) locations.

The mandatory panel is only intended to be used “where an agency needs private or community cloud (or legacy self-hosted) with the security classification of protected”.

Agencies will require an exemption to the government's cloud policy and circular, which asks that all NSW agencies use public cloud services by default.

The government introduced the “public cloud first” policy last year in a bid to accelerate public and private cloud adoption when replacing or renewing existing services, platforms and infrastructure.

It expects all agencies will be using public cloud “for a minimum 25 percent of their ICT services” by 2023.

Where public cloud is not suitable for agency requirements, private cloud services through GovDC can be used by "exception".

The government is yet to publicly detail any providers on the new panel.

The new panel comes two months after the government approached the market to expand the number of whole-of-government cloud purchasing arrangements (CPA).

The CPA is a standing offer arrangement with public cloud providers for agencies to consume primarily infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS).

Vault, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and IBM are the only providers to have entered into CPA contracts to date.