NSW govt looks to broker new cloud deals

The NSW government is looking to diversify the cloud platforms and services available to agencies as it begins to ramp up its shift to public cloud.

The Department of Customer Service has approached the market to expand the number of whole-of-government cloud purchasing arrangements (CPA) with cloud service providers.

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).

It is intended to accelerate the adoption of public cloud by avoiding the need to negotiate individual contracts and to reduce costs by leveraging demand from across government.

The CPA was established just before the government adopted a “public cloud first” policy last year, which means all agencies must now use public cloud services by default.

Where public cloud is not suitable for agency requirements, private cloud services through GovDC can be used by "exception", though agencies are required to request this.

The government expects all agencies will be using public cloud "for a minimum 25 percent of their ICT services" by 2023.

Tender documents reveal DCS is seeking proposals from CSPs for not only public cloud services, but also private cloud and community cloud services in the first formal intake.

“The [cloud] strategy outlines a number of procurement-related initiatives in order to simplify and streamline the consumption of cloud services,” the request for proposal states.

“Of particularly relevance is the requirement to develop a cloud panel for cloud services, cloud advisory, and implementation services.”

Professional services that can be provided under the CPA include migration services or transition-out services, DCS said.

The CSPs will join existing suppliers Vault, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and IBM, who have entered into CPA contracts over the last year.

Documents note that “total ICT spend increased by 16.25 percent from 2015-16 and has continued to increase every year since 2012-13”, a trend that is “expected to continue”.

Last year, the government said total ICT spend was expected to reach $3.99 billion in the 2020-21 financial year.

“A significant portion of information and systems are anticipated to move to the public cloud over the coming years as the public sector seeks more cost-effective and flexible service and deployment models,” the RFP states.

“According to a recent Ovum survey of NSW government decision-makers, approximately 70 percent of respondents see 60 to 84 percent of workloads eventually migrating to the cloud.

“As such, it is important that procurement frameworks, including processes, policies, and contractual arrangements, are fit for purpose in terms of optimising spend and accommodating growth in consumption.”