Unitywater goes all-in with public cloud

Queensland utility Unitywater is migrating its entire application set into the public cloud, signing a deal with ASG to help it move to and run in Microsoft’s Azure.

The five-year, $16.5 million contract will see Unitywater shift responsibility for the management of its infrastructure and applications to ASG.

The firm will move all 180 of the utility's applications into Azure out of Unitywater's existing private cloud, managed by NEC.

Unitywater has operated out of the NEC-managed private cloud since 2012, when it outsourced its IT services to CSG, acquired by NEC that same year.

The utility is now aiming to be fully operational on Azure by April.

Work has already begun on the transition. ASG general manager of client solutions Vanessa Symons told iTnews Unitywater had started remediation work prior to appointing ASG, enabling migration to get underway soon after the contract signing.

“There are some complexities, there will always be when migrating from a private to public cloud,” Symons said.

“But we’ve put in place a fairly robust transition plan, and we’re working with the software providers and Unitywater closely for the migration.”

The decision to move to a public cloud stemmed from Unitywater's desire for flexibility and easier access to systems, Symons said - and being an existing Microsoft shop, the decision to shift to Azure was on its way to being made before ASG was chosen as the supplier.

As part of the contract ASG will provide managed services for infrastructure and applications as well as “innovation opportunities”.

Microsoft brought Azure to its Australian data centres in 2014.

Unitywater provides water supply and sewage services to the Moreton Bay, Sunshine Coast and Noosa regions of South East Queensland.