Telstra's plans for government cloud

Telstra has announced plans to develop a cloud environment built specifically for federal, state and local government.

The company says the Government Cloud represents significant investment and a key milestone in the implementation of its long-term cloud strategy, which is to offer customers scalable and flexible cloud services.

Scheduled to launch in the first half of 2015, it says the new environment will increase the ability of government organisations to access highly secure and compliant cloud services and help achieve their cloud first policy objectives across both unclassified- and protected-level data.

“Telstra has a long and successful history working with governments and we’re committed to ensuring our relationship continues to grow as technology requirements change and evolve,” said Erez Yarkoni, Executive Director Cloud, Telstra Global Enterprise and Services.

“As governments move into a new era of service delivery transformation to meet the current and future digital expectations of its citizens, the ability to use protected cloud services is as critical to their future plans as it is to the private sector - digital disruption is impacting everyone.”

The company says the Government Cloud will provide confidence that the data is safe and hosted in Australia, while helping enable the public sector to achieve greater efficiency and generate more value from its ICT investments.

“In line with our own cloud strategy to offer increased flexibility and choice, this new, highly secure cloud platform will help enable governments to be leaders in the use of cloud services and provide opportunities for continued innovation and collaboration,” said Yarkoni.

Image courtesy Karl Baron under CC