Accelerating Cloud Adoption and Innovation Across the New Zealand Public Sector

Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is delighted to announce a new agreement with the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), to provide cloud services that are designed to accelerate the adoption of cloud computing in the public sector, save costs, boost digital skills across public services, deliver digital services for citizens, and provide AWS Partners with more opportunities to work with government customers.

The “AWS Cloud Service Agreement” (ACSA) is a new agreement to provide AWS cloud services to all eligible government departments and agencies, crown entities, government-owned organisations, local councils, and public universities, tertiary institutions, and schools. The centralised agreement replaces the AWS Cloud Framework Agreement that has been in place with the DIA since 2017, which provided access to more than 200 fully-featured AWS cloud services, including AWS’s industry-leading security capabilities and world-class global cloud infrastructure.

Under the new agreement, New Zealand’s public sector can continue to access AWS cloud, as well as a range of new benefits tailored to each stage in their cloud journey. For example, those new to the cloud will benefit from a package of services to support cloud adoption, upskill their workforce, establish a secure and compliant foundation, and develop an effective cloud migration plan. Established cloud customers will benefit from cost-effective support options and cost savings for AWS cloud services.

Another new feature of the agreement is that public sector customers can choose to purchase cloud services directly from AWS, or through authorised partners in the AWS Partner Network. This will ensure our public sector customers in New Zealand maintain easy access to our reliable and secure cloud services as well as provide greater choice in how they procure them.

AWS works with a thriving community of AWS Partners in New Zealand who provide knowledge, expertise, and services to support digital transformation. This includes businesses like Consegna, Datacom, and Deloitte, who work with New Zealand’s public sector customers to deliver digital services for citizens. Public sector customers can benefit from working with AWS Partners, who have AWS specialist skills and capabilities, through ACSA’s simple commercial model.

“Deloitte welcomes the introduction of the new AWS Cloud Services Agreement to New Zealand, enabling a simplified contractual model that provides access to over 200 AWS services resold through Deloitte who provide additional specialist skills and capabilities that enable public sector customers to further strengthen the development of New Zealand’s technology capabilities and accelerate the transformation and digitisation of citizen services,” said Damian Harvey, Partner, Cloud and Engineering Platform, Deloitte New Zealand.

“At Consegna, as an AWS Premier Service Partner holding the AWS Government Competency, we are helping a number of New Zealand government agencies harness the power of AWS cloud services to serve Kiwis better,” said John Taylor, Managing Director at Consegna.  “This simplified AWS Cloud Services Agreement will make it easier for public sector customers to reduce their contract negotiation costs, and rollout great services using the latest AWS technologies."

Better Outcomes for Kiwis

AWS continues to work on the smooth delivery and operations of many important digital government initiatives in New Zealand. Every month, thousands of active customers, including large public sector organisations like Department of Conservation (DOC), Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), Health New Zealand (HNZ), Wellington City Council (WCC), and University of Auckland (UoA) use AWS.

Last year, AWS worked with New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to translate the New Zealand Information Security Manual (NZISM) into conformance packs for AWS. This makes it easier for government and private-sector customers to assess the compliance of their AWS cloud environment against the NZISM.

AWS cloud also played a role in HNZ’s (formally Ministry of Health) delivery of its COVID-19 pandemic response. Last year, HNZ launched a COVID-19 vaccine register using AWS technology, and prior to that AWS supported New Zealand’s COVID-19 Tracer and My Covid Record apps which provide services that have contributed to New Zealand’s vaccination and pandemic response effort.

Another public sector collaboration facilitated through AWS is with the UoA, which has more than 40,000 students and 13,000 staff across seven campuses in Auckland and one campus in Whangārei. To remain globally competitive, UoA embraced digital transformation across its operations with AWS to meet the current and future needs of its students and staff. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, UoA migrated a critical teaching and learning application that holds 29 terabytes of learning content to the cloud in just six weeks. This migration allowed the university to deliver learning content to over 2,000 overseas students who were unable to travel due to lockdowns. In total, approximately 18,000 students used this application.

AWS’s Commitment to Aotearoa 

The new ACSA is a key pillar in AWS’s investment in and vision for New Zealand. It forms part of our deep and long-term commitment to the country, building on AWS’s NZ$7.5 billion investment to create an AWS Asia Pacific (Auckland) Region, which is projected to create 1,000 new jobs and contribute NZD$10.8 billion to Aotearoa’s GDP over the next 15 years. We are aiming for our Auckland Region to be 100% powered by renewable energy at launch.

Earlier this year, we also announced an Auckland-based AWS Local Zone, placing AWS compute, storage, database, and other services closer to customers - enabling them to build and deploy applications that require single-digit millisecond latency closer to end users or on-premises data centres.

To support our local customers and growing workforce, we have AWS offices in Auckland and Wellington, which are staffed by more than 150 Kiwis across roles such as data scientists, cloud engineers, solutions architects, and sales and account managers. Over the next few years we will add a further 200 staff to our AWS New Zealand team to support local customers and partners.

New Zealand is making tremendous strides on its digital transformation journey, and we are committed to strengthening our presence in the global digital economy by making our world-class infrastructure more easily accessible to Kiwis.

The ACSA is part of the ongoing collaboration between AWS and the New Zealand government to engage and serve citizens as part of the government’s “cloud first” approach to digital transformation. We look forward to continuing to support the government’s vision to be a digital leader by leveraging technology to drive economic growth and support the social wellbeing of Aotearoa.