This is a presentation given at the Amazon Web Services Conference in Canberra on 6 May 15. It is designed to demonstrate the growth of cloud computing as a source of IT support for the Australian Government and to describe the arrangements in place to support these developments.

These statistics are drawn from the AusTender data available by searching 'contracts' on data.gov.au and looking for contracts with 'cloud' in the detail, then deleting items that are actually about clouds in the sky and vendors with cloud in the title that don't sell cloud.

The FY figures are:

2010 - $65k
2011 - $308k
2012 - $1.461m
2013 - $441k
2014 - $3.662m
2015 (to date) - $20.364m

These are published dates, not annualised contract figures. the duration of the contracts varies.

This chart uses the same data. The use of the terms SaaS, IaaS and PaaS were only entrenched in AusTender from this FY so it shows a bias towards non-defined terms but it does give a good view of the likely preference for SaaS at this stage.

Cloud is a disruptive change - not because of the technology but, like Henry Ford's Model T, because of the procurement method that has made the technology available much more easily than was previously the case.

This has required new policy arrangements to address the use of cloud. The current cloud policy (the third version) is available at http://www.finance.gov.au/sites/default/files/australian-government-cloud-c...

Paraphrased it says that agencies must use cloud when it is fit for purpose, value for money, and provides appropriate security.

Our initial work in cloud procurement was the Data Centre as a Service multi-use list (http://www.finance.gov.au/policy-guides-procurement/data-centres/data-centr...) through which we arranged about 40 contracts for a total of $2m, providing valuable insight into how best to arrange cloud procurement.

Our experiences in DCaaS and the changing emphasis in government direction led us to develop the Cloud Services Panel (http://www.finance.gov.au/policy-guides-procurement/cloud-services-panel/). This panel now has 93 providers from large companies like Amazon to local Australian SMEs offering IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and specialist cloud services. Already, over $4m of contracts have been signed under the panel with the promise of much more to come. The standard head agreement, based on considerable consultation before the RFT was published has led to an accelerated contracting period with vendors. The innovative services catalogue is also making procurement easier for agencies.

The need for a simplified, standardised, accessible content management system to support australia.gov.au and finance.gov.au led us to develop the govCMS offering (https://www.govcms.gov.au).

We first moved to Drupal and then sought a public cloud offering through an RFP, in which Acquia was the successful provider. You can read about its development in this series of posts on our blog (http://www.finance.gov.au/taxonomy/term/1296/).

This has proven to be very popular with agencies and we have almost 10 live sites already with many more in the queue - and not just the small to medium agencies we were initially targeting.

Security is a big focus of our work. ASD has been instrumental in assisting in this area, providing important and useful guidance and, now, announcing a certification program for cloud services. The ASD information can be found here: http://www.asd.gov.au/infosec/cloudsecurity.htm

The change in the AGD guidance to a risk management approach has also made cloud easier to procure and manage (http://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/informationsecurity/Documents/Australi...)