WA signs $100M whole-of-government deal with AWS

Hot on the heels of its landmark deal with Microsoft, Western Australia has signed another whole-of-government agreement for public cloud services, this time with Amazon Web Services (AWS). 

The cloud giant signed a Common Use Arrangement (CUA) valued at roughly $100 million with WA as part of the Digital Transformation Agency’s (DTA) streamlined procurement scheme. 

The deal will run from 9 November this year until 30 April 2022 with the option of a three-year extension on the table.

The deal gives all WA agencies access to AWS’ cloud services under the Office of Digital Government, with AWS releasing its own procurement guidelines to help departments find services to suit their needs. 

Services included in the arrangement are as follows: AWS Cloud Computing Services; AWS Enterprise Support; AWS Professional Services (ProServ) and AWS Training and Certification.

In theory, the deal will ease up AWS partners’ access to these government agencies while allegedly encouraging the development of modern digital government service. 

“The introduction of this centralised 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," said Iain Rouse, country director for AWS Public Sector in Australia and New Zealand.   

"The agreement will enable agencies to invest more time and resources to deliver services to citizens rather than on negotiating 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 the changing needs of Western Australian citizens. 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.” 

AWS first became a DTA whole-of-government vendor in 2019, two years after the agency began the Federal-wide process of streamlining IT procurement. 

At the time, the DTA claimed a co-ordinated approach would simplify the process and reduce administrative costs. 

As a government public cloud provider, AWS now has 92 services certified under the Federal government’s PROTECTED status, giving these the highest level of security compliance. 

Today’s announcement comes two months after Microsoft signed a whole-of-government agreement with WA, giving its agencies access to Microsoft Azure as well as Teams, Office 365 and Dynamics 365. Agencies will also be able to leverage Windows Virtual Desktop. 

The agreement came in conjunction with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between WA and Microsoft that focuses on security.