AGIMO finalises cloud directions strategy

After outing a draft cloud computing strategy in January for the Federal Government, the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) has released a finalised cloud direction strategy today.

Following consultation with industry, AGIMO has made several changes to the policy from the draft version, such as a plan to communicate regularly between the agency and the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) and a plan to look at forming procurement panels for cloud computing providers.

"There were requests for us to develop a comprehensive local cloud service provider listing. As part of the cloud computing strategy, we will investigate possible panel arrangements for cloud providers in developing the cloud framework," government CIO Ann Steward said in an AGIMO blog post.

Steward also took the opportunity to defend AGIMO's view of cloud security risks following some criticism from the AIIA in February.

"There was also some concern that the strategy put forward was too slow or too conservative. We consider that the strategy is appropriate given the risks to privacy and security of holding sensitive information in the public cloud," Steward said.

"The strategy will enable Australian Government agencies to gain the potential benefits of cloud computing and ensure that sensitive information is not put at risk," she added.

The government has already begun migrating its public facing websites onto the cloud, with the public data hub data.gov.au already successfully moved.

Also included in the finalised strategy was an updated look at organisations who had moved to the cloud both locally and internationally. The case examples now include the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, SAP, and the United Kingdom's G-cloud initiative.