WA brokers government-wide deal with AWS

The WA government has entered a whole-of-government agreement with Amazon Web Services to gives agencies better access to public cloud services.

The common use arrangement (CUA) – which leverages the federal government’s  agreement with AWS – was revealed by the Office of Digital Government (ODG) on Wednesday.

It is the second whole-of-government deal with AWS signed by a state government to date, following the NSW government’s AWS sourcing agreement in late August.

The WA government has already established CUAs with Oracle and, as of August, Microsoft for public cloud access to co-ordinate procurement and drive down costs.

The mandatory CUA will give all state government agencies a consistent way to access AWS cloud services, as well as support, professional services and training.

It will also be accessible to local government authorities and universities, as is the case with the federal government agreement.

The ODG said it had “negotiated some specific amendments” to the federal government’s AWS agreement to “meet WA’s requirements”.

The office has released an AWS CUA buyers guide to provide agencies with details of the process to sign up to the CUA.

AWS A/NZ public sector director Iain Rouse said the agreement would “provide a consistent approach to buying AWS services, without having to negotiate separated contract terms.”

“The agreement will enable agencies to invest more time and resources to deliver services to citizens rather than on negotiating contracts,” he said in a statement

Rouse said the agreement would also make it easier for AWS partners to “build innovative solutions to meet the changing needs of WA citizens”.

“Since all agencies will have the same terms, the smallest and largest agencies alike will be able to access the same benefits, including AWS’s robust security and data protection capabilities,” he added.