Equinix, Fujitsu, and NextDC have joined the list of data center providers certified under the Australian Government’s hosting certification framework.
Introduced in March as part of the whole-of-government hosting strategy, the framework requires Government agencies to host data and applications in facilities that meet defined security, risk management, and risk mitigation standards. The Government said the Framework helps agencies to “mitigate against supply chain and data center ownership risks” and enable them to “identify and source appropriate hosting and related services.”
The Australian Government announced in June it had certified Australian Data Centres, Canberra Data Centres, and Macquarie Telecom against the framework.
This month the Government has updated the hosting framework page to include the three new providers who meet the required standards and classed as Certified strategic in a number of facilities across Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, and Brisbane.
As reported by ITNews, Certified strategic is the highest level of assurance under the framework, and requires data centers and managed services providers to allow the government to specify ownership and control conditions.
Australia’s whole-of-government hosting strategy has been in development since 2019 partly to ensure standardization across Government, but also to ensure data sovereignty.
Since Chinese investors took control of data center company Global Switch over a three-year period beginning in 2016, the Government has been on a migration journey, moving data and applications out of the company’s data center in Ultimo, Sydney, and into facilities owned by other providers.
This January, the Australian Securities commission said it would leave and move to Canberra Data Centres, joining many of the other fleeing agencies including Home Affairs, the Australian Tax Office, and the Defence Department.
The Australian Government set a new target date of July 2022 for federal agencies to leave Global Switch’s Sydney data center on grounds of national security, having missed the previous goal of September 2020.
