After the Microsoft Azure deal, Western Australia (WA) Government has inked a new whole-of-government deal with Amazon Web Services for cloud services. This deal ensures that educational institutions or local governments would not have to sign separate cloud services deals. Western Australia’s Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) has signed this deal worth roughly around $100 million with AWS to provide all state entities access to latest services under the new contract without paying the vendor separately.
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Before this, the DTA has signed multiple deals with other vendors, including AWS, IBM, and Microsoft. This new deal has been inked for 9 November 2020 to 30 April 2022 and comes with an optional 3-year extension period. The deal will also include uninterrupted access to multiple Amazon Web Services like AWS Cloud Computing Services, AWS Professional Services (ProServ), AWS Enterprise Support, and AWS Training and Certification for all agencies. AWS will release guidelines to support departments in finding relevant services for them.
This deal will allow the WA government to reduce duplication of resources and government’s expenditure on cloud services. The WA Government is planning on shifting its IT infrastructure model to the new consumption-based variation. According to the official sources, this deal is likely to save the Australian Government somewhere around $60-80 million annually in IT expenditure. Earlier we reported that the Australian Government had also inked a deal with Microsoft to provide cloud services to various pillars of the government agencies. With the deal, these pillars will gain the right to use various Microsoft services, including Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Teams, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Office 365, Windows Virtual Desktop, and many more.
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According to Iain Rouse, country director for AWS Public Sector in Australia and New Zealand, “the introduction of this centralized agreement provides Western Australian state and local government agencies as well as other approved users such as universities with a consistent approach to buying AWS services, without having to negotiate separate contract terms. The agreement will enable agencies to invest more time and resources to deliver services to citizens rather than negotiate contracts. With agencies and universities having the ability to access AWS services via the CUA, AWS Partners can more easily build innovative solutions to meet Western Australian citizens’ changing needs. 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.”