The Western Australian (WA) Government has selected NEC as one of three suppliers to lead GovNext-ICT, a whole-of-government IT program operated by WA's Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (GCIO) that will help WA Government agencies to undertake a Digital transformation of all their ICT Services.
This includes the migration of on-premise ICT infrastructure to a hybrid cloud architecture on a unified state-wide network in a consumption based model.
The work being undertaken by NEC Australia as part of GovNext-ICT positions the WA Government to fully exploit the emergence of as-a-service consumption of ICT services, while improving its ability to deliver modern and stable computing infrastructure.
"NEC Australia is proud to support a cutting edge technology project for the Western Australian Government that allows each agency to control technology costs on an as-needs basis," said Mike Barber, Chief Operating Officer at NEC Australia.
"The appointment of NEC as one of three suppliers of ICT infrastructure to the Western Australian Government marks the beginning of an exciting new digital era for the public sector," Innovation Minister Bill Marmion said. "The new arrangements will modernise technology across government and provide the technical platform for the State's ICT Strategy Digital WA. We look forward to working with NEC, and the two other suppliers, over the term of this contract," he said.
In partnership with NEC Australia, the WA Government will realize up to 40 percent cost savings through reduced licensing fees and infrastructure costs and improved efficiency. The partnership will also help reduce costs in building management, insurance, and hardware maintenance.
Additional benefits to the government include improved physical and data security, and more resilient infrastructure to support disaster recovery and business continuity objectives.
The multi-year contract with NEC Australia covers data centre co-location services, private cloud services, public cloud integration, network and communication services, identity management and ICT operations.
WA's agencies across education, health, public safety, finance, transport, roads, community services and more will benefit from the transition to a government-wide service model that allows each agency to select the most appropriate solution for their environment.
From the outset, the program will allow agencies to limit technology costs to what they use, while avoiding vendor lock-in and ensuring ongoing competitiveness during future procurement.
Overall, the program aims to simplify technology, improve inter-agency network connectivity and interaction, and provide the community with transparent and efficient digital government services.
NEC will implement a cloud brokerage service that will enable Government agencies to consume infrastructure (IaaS) and platforms (PaaS) under a utility model. This brokerage model means that agencies can access the best-pricing for ICT services, with standardised and easy to understand consumption payment models.