Vault Systems to train 3000 IT staff for secure cloud

Vault Systems will upskill thousands of government IT professionals each year to use secure cloud as part of a new training program.

The training program will kick off in Canberra mid next month to help address a growing demand for cloud expertise across the federal government.

It will see 3000 mostly junior government IT staff, including software developers, technical project leaders and infrastructure engineers, trained up on secure cloud systems annually.

The two-day course will focus on improving understanding about the technology, as well as the operational skills required to maintain platforms.

A dedicated training facility - dubbed the Vault Academy - will also serve as a forum for IT professionals to collaborate and share best practice.

“There’s not a great deal of understanding about cloud [in government],” Vault Systems chair Jane Halton told iTnews.

This, coupled with federal government’s increasing push towards the cloud, compelled the secure cloud provider to improve hands-on training, she said.

“We all understand that cloud is where the future is. Our interest is in making sure that is a good transition for the public sector.”

Halton said the program would be open to both internal agency IT staff and contractors.

“What we’ll do with this course is begin to upskill slightly more junior people who actually are going to be doing these things,” she said.

“People can come and do a training course to understand what cloud is, how it operates, how you might transition, and what some of the issues to think about are.”

Both large and small government agencies are expected to participate in program, which will be offered on a first come first serve basis, although Halton said the program would first look to meet the needs of agencies migrating to the cloud.

“If there’s a need for an agency migrating we would be looking to meet that need as a matter of some urgency,” she said.

The move to introduce a training program comes as Microsoft becomes the first hyperscale cloud service provider to receive protected level certification from the Australian Signals Directorate.

However, the entry has brought with it confusion over whether agencies are required to use “additional configuration and security controls” in order to address “residual risks attached to this delivery model”.

Microsoft is similarly planning to upskill 5000 Australian public service workers with cloud computing skills by 2020.

Vault Systems was one of the first cloud service providers to be allowed to host protected data.