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Services Australia has handed NTT Australia a bundle of new hardware, licensing and services deals worth over $50 million.
Among the series of recent contracts awarded to NTT by Services Australia, one of the biggest spenders on tech within the federal government, was a $17.2 million one-year deal for the purchase of x86 commodity server hardware to enhance and extend the agency’s OpenStack private cloud server platform.
The procurement was undertaken via the Digital Transformation Agency’s (DTA) Hardware Marketplace Panel arrangements, upon which 119 suppliers reside, including Data#3, IBM, Sliced Tech and Unisys Australia.
Also procured from the Hardware Marketplace was an $8.3 million five-year contract for NTT to provide additional gateway capacity to cater for the increased online user activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Services Australia’s response to increased demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic also saw it award NTT with a $7.3 million deal for Cisco vendor hardware, software, maintenance and support to provide additional capacity across the agency’s network.
“A capacity uplift was required in order to ensure we could continue to provide vital online services to the Australian public and Services Australia staff,” a Services Australia spokesperson told ARN.
Services Australia has also handed NTT a $5.9 million one-year contract for additional hardware to support staff in delivering services to the community in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This contract also included the purchase of x86 commodity server hardware.
Meanwhile, Services Australia, which is in the midst of a landmark $1 billion-plus technology overhaul called the Welfare Payment Infrastructure Transformation (WPIT) program, has awarded NTT with a $12.6 million one-year contract for unified cloud management capability of the agency’s Red Hat Linux-based infrastructure environments.
“It is used for hosting existing critical business services, including supporting middleware infrastructure operations, myGov and core strategic deliverables such as the Delivery Modernisation program,” the spokesperson said.
This procurement was undertaken via the DTA’s Software License and Services Panel, as was a $2 million deal for Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA), which protects the Services Australia email infrastructure and employee emails. It includes anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-malware, outbreak filtering and encryption features.
The agency recently awarded a $22-million contract to Telstra to bolster its capabilities during the coronavirus pandemic.
That contract was aimed to provide additional infrastructure for Services Australia's Smart Centres to support the set-up of additional staff drafted in to support people affected by COVID-19 and its repercussions.
