NSW Govt sets out new technical standards for mobility

The NSW Government has developed a new set of technical standards governing how agencies procure mobility solutions, as it trials new contracts for the delivery of as-a-service solutions.

The state government announced a shift towards a service orientation for IT as part of its IT Strategy 2012, in order to reduce duplication and promote a whole-of-government approach to IT.

Similarly, late last year the government said it would mandate that agencies consider cloud-based services for new IT procurements, under a new cloud policy. 

The government today revealed it would create a new set of procurement and technical standards for "as-a-service solutions", which will set a common base requirement for solutions being purchased by NSW government agencies.

It has decided to test out the new standards-based approach on mobility solutions first.

The standards concern themselves with configuration management, security management, and service management of mobile devices.

At a minimum, all devices must have password authentication, automatic locking, data encryption, device data segregation, up to date antivirus and other hygiene solutions installed, and legitimate operating systems, among others.

Agencies themselves will need to conduct a risk assessment of the devices as well as the type of services the devices will access, in order to make a decision on which mobile device management solution is the most appropriate, and will also need to remove any agency data from the device at the end of its life, among other crtieria.

The standard will be reviewed in 12 months time, the Office of Finance and Services said.

The state will use suppliers signed-up to the mobile sub-category of its existing ICT Services Catalogue to test the effectiveness of the full process from procurement to technical standards development, towards the end goal of making “as-a-service” offerings available on the catalogue.

It has offered suppliers a common framework for a standardised approach to the procurement of mobility solutions across government, and asked them to demonstrate how their services meet the new standard.

If successful, suppliers will gain approval for their solutions to be included on the ICT Service Catalogue.

“The aim is for suppliers to respond once to NSW Government with their as a service offering demonstrating how as a minimum they meet the appropriate standard (i.e. Mobility Framework). The offering can have additional elements that are not directly asked for in the standard but may be of use to some agencies."

Once the trial is completed, the state will review the process with the Australian Information Industry Association and gauge feedback from suppliers.