Defence reveals plans for a multi-vendor cloud service including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS cloud services at the secret level.
It is expected to approach the market in June to identify potential industry partners to provide secret-level cloud services, according to an industry notice.
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Documents also demonstrated the need for security, police and intelligence agencies to ‘’ collaborate effectively and efficiently at the secret security classification”.
The Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have shown and advanced interest in using the environment in the future.
Defence said this is “hampered by siloed information systems and the use of disparate networks”.
The department is also willing to use the cloud service to ‘’ rapidly adopt modern technology suites, deploy new capabilities… faster and leverage the scale and pace of change available.’’
“Availability of public cloud service at official and protected security classifications have enabled capabilities that go part way to addressing these needs,” said Defence
Additionally, Defence intends to use the cloud services to “rapidly adopt modern technology suites, deploy new capabilities… faster and leverage the scale and pace of change available”
“The availability of public cloud services at official and protected security classifications have enabled capabilities that go part way to addressing these needs,”
“However, full realisation will only occur with cloud services being realised at higher security classifications.” it said
Establishing a diverse multi-vendor secret cloud
A “number of distinct tranches” will be used to progressively establish “diverse multi-vendor secret cloud capabilities that are hosted in Australia”, documents stated.
“Each Tranche of the program will be aim at procuring specific cloud services. That aligned to business or capabilities priorities.’’
Documents show “Each Tranche of the Program will be aimed at procuring specific cloud services aligned to business or capability priorities,”
Defence intends to seek to partner with one or more cloud service providers to rapidly provide secure and highly scalable cloud service for use by Defence customers
Assisting to rapidly establish a foundational secret IaaS cloud service, defence said that the initial request for expressions of interest will be in June.
This will help secure information edge computing, information sharing, rapid prototyping and development. It will also introduce new applications and faster services.
Three Distinct Tranches
Tranche #1
Defence intends to seek to partner with one or more cloud service providers to rapidly provide secure and highly scalable cloud service for use by Defence customers
Tranche #2
Expanding on the IaaS platform established under tranche one, including additional secret level cloud services from different cloud providers, and additional IaaS and PaaS services.
Tranche #3
Pending it’s definition by Defence, tranche three is expected to “continue to build on the secret cloud services established under tranches one and two”, including IaaS, PaaS and SaaS services.
Defence said the infrastructure would need to be “ready for accreditation at the secret level for the defence environment within six months of contract signing.’’
