Services Australia tips virtual desktop consolidation

Services Australia has signalled a potential consolidation of virtual desktop technology, both for the agency directly and to departments that it provides IT shared services to.

The consolidation is at an early stage of being scoped out, with Services Australia opening a request for information on cloud-based desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) options.

A spokesperson for Services Australia told iTnews that it is after “consistent, contemporary, secure, streamlined and cost-effective approaches to deliver the business functions that virtual desktop services enable.”

“Our current solution uses multiple technology platforms mostly as a result of evolving use cases and capabilities over time,” the spokesperson said, adding that it is scoping a consolidated platform for between 1000 and 5000 concurrent users.

In brief comments attached to the request for information, Services Australia indicated that it wanted to move away from the technical and financial overheads involved with running multiple similar technologies.

“Virtual desktop systems hosted on multiple different technology platforms consequently increase operational and support overheads, creating user experience fragmentation and introduce risks associated with inconsistent security controls and standards compliance across the virtual desktop systems,” the agency wrote.

“This request for information is intended to enable the agency to consider and adopt a more consistent, contemporary, secure, streamlined and therefore cost-effective approach to delivering business functionalities that virtual desktop services enable.”

The agency declined to detail what virtual desktop software exists in its own environment or is offered via IT shared services to the likes of the Department of Social Services (DSS) and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA).