Dimension Data and Telstra fight it out for Australian government cloud

Telstra and Dimension Data have joined Macquarie Telecom to offer cloud computing services to Australian governments both in Canberra as well as states and territories.

Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull launched Dimension Data’s Canberra cloud data center, which is dedicated to the federal government, and says it will go live from early 2015.

Turnbull noted the Coalition's encouragement for agencies to go cloud-first where possible and practical in terms of security, and to make it easier for vendors to sell to departments.

"Dimension Data's Canberra cloud platform will be tenanted exclusively by government agencies and their data will be held securely in Canberra," says Rodd Cunico, Dimension Data, chief executive.

Dimension Data says this platform will be housed in a new facility that is being constructed by Canberra Data Centers.

It will provide sufficient security for classified government data as it will be co-located with government infrastructure and have a protective wall to isolate it from wider threats, Dimension Data says.

This is Dimension Data’s third managed cloud platform (MCP) in Australia as it has already signed the National Disability Insurance Agency and the Finance Department. The latter is set to run its video conference booking software as a service.

Telstra simultaneously announced its G-Cloud - the cloud environment built specifically for federal, state and local government - will be launched in the first half of 2015. Telstra says this will also offer security for protected level as well as unclassified government information.

Chris Pearce, Telstra, government and not-for-profit executive director, says the service would be hosted in their Australian data centers to prevent information going overseas.

Details of the new cloud environment are yet to be announced but Telstra says its initial focus is to offer infrastructure as a service.

Already Telstra offers private cloud solutions to a number of government agencies such as the Department of Defence and Department of Human Services.