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Although details are scarce, the new Australian government is set to take a much more aggressive approach to the adoption of cloud-computing use by government agencies.

The government's Policy for E-Government and the Digital Economy, released in August while in opposition by Malcolm Turnbull, now the Communications Minister, stipulates that agencies will use shared or cloud services where minimum efficient scale hurdles are not met, with a default expectation that private or public cloud solutions will be used whenever efficient scale is not achieved at an agency level.

It also calls for the trial relocation of critical data to a secure government cloud using automated tools from next year. The policy brings the Australian government in line with so-called "cloud first" policies already enacted in the US and Britain.

The emphasis on the use of cloud services at a federal level has been music to the ears of Matt Healy, national executive for regulatory and government at Macquarie Telecom, and chairman of the OzHub cloud industry alliance.

Mr Healy says the new policy is not far removed from that launched under previous communications minister Steven Conroy in May, in that it recognises the transformation of service delivery and the potential for efficiency dividends.

He says, however, that the new policy appears to borrow the mantra of the Coalition broadband policy.

"They want to do it faster, they want to do it quicker, and they want to do it cheaper," Mr Healy says. "Also, importantly, it recognises online is the way in which constituents want to be dealing with government across a whole range of things, and therefore it is important for government to be able to move to meet those needs."

Mr Healy says it remains unclear, however, whether Mr Turnbull will be given the green light to influence the procurement of technology across government departments - a role which fell to the Department of Finance and its agency AGIMO under the previous government.

"If you want true leadership in this area then you've got to have someone who's passionate about taking the government forward as a model user, and we think the best person to do that in the current government is Malcolm Turnbull," Mr Healy says. "And if it is left to those that are managing the spend for the country within Finance, then you might not have those passionate leadership attributes."

The Coalition policy also recognises that increased government cloud usage will contribute to the local cloud industry, which has also pleased OzHub.

"We want the government to be a model user of these services," Mr Healy says. "And the effect of them using these services shows that it is not an immature and early-stage technology, it's living, breathing and being used today, and we need to get the broader sectors to think about cloud as an option when they are thinking about procurement."

The announcement of a more aggressive strategy is good news for both local and international cloud service providers, many of whom have already been winning significant public sector work.

IBM Australia's managing director Andrew Stevens says the policy shows a good understanding of the complex interdependence between cloud computing and other parts of the digital economy, including broadband infrastructure, technical skills and the leadership role that government agencies can play as major users of technology and as examples to other organisations. "With that in mind, we would certainly encourage the new government to accelerate the transition to cloud services for both large and small agencies," Mr Stevens says.

The chief executive officer of the AIIA, Suzanne Campbell, says she is also pleased to see the Coalition's preparedness to embrace cloud computing. "We welcome Minister Turnbull's intention to move away from a more risk-averse critique of cloud investment," Ms Campbell says. "It presents an opportunity for government to demonstrate real leadership and transform the way citizen services are delivered."

Ms Campbell also called upon the new government to remove some of the red tape that has restricted cloud uptake, such as the current requirement that procurement of cloud services within a department be signed off by both the responsible minister and the Attorney-General.

Even ahead of the policy's implementation, numerous cloud suppliers have noted an increase in interest from government agencies across all three levels of government.

Dimension Data's general manager of cloud services, Dave Hanrahan, says his company is enjoying broad uptake of cloud services across just about every sector of the market, with the finance and public sector moving particularly quickly.

TechnologyOne chief executive officer Adrian Di Marco, who is betting the future of his business on retooling its software to run in the cloud, says he is getting a positive response from government sector clients.

"They are saying that they would like departments to look at cloud as the first option rather than on premise, and I think that's great," Mr Di Marco says. "There is so much saving they can get by going to the cloud, and starting to get away from all the contractors they are using to keep their systems running. It's a great initiative."

Mr Di Marco says TechnologyOne's shift has already been well received by government clients, including at state and local level. This includes 21 agencies in Western Australia that are moving away from Oracle on to TechnologyOne's cloud.

"And here in Queensland we are seeing quite a lot of talk about moving to the cloud as well," Mr Di Marco says. Several state governments have also moved to embrace the cloud, including Victoria, which in March announced that its new whole-of-government ICT strategy would use cloud-computing infrastructure and increase the use of shared services to deliver.

And last month the NSW Minster for Finance and Services, Andrew Constance, announced the state's first Cloud Services Policy, intended to help NSW government agencies take advantage of cloud-based solutions to deliver better services in support of the goals of the NSW government ICT Strategy 2012 released in the previous year.

A spokesperson for the Communications Minister did not respond to questions from The Australian on the government's cloud policy.

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Autor(en)/Author(s): Brad Howarth

Quelle/Source: The Australian, 22.10.2013

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