Following conferring of ‘Authority to Operate’ status, AUCloud completes a unique hat-trick with ‘Certified Strategic’ cloud service provider status from the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) and VMware confirmation of AUCloud leadership as a Sovereign Cloud Provider.
AUCloud is delighted to confirm certification, as one of the first wave of Cloud Service Providers awarded ‘Certified Strategic’ status under the Australian Government’s new Hosting Certification Framework (HCF).
Originally developed to certify the ownership and control characteristics of data centre providers, the HCF has been extended to assess these features in the context of the supply chain risks related to cloud service provider and managed services companies. This stringent government scrutiny examines the underlying ownership of organisations, the personnel who can control and influence company strategy or access customer or company data and underlying supply chain risks to operations.
The HCF complements the ACSC’s Cloud Assessment and Authorisation Framework (CAAF) and collectively supports the government’s requirement that all relevant (PROTECTED level or whole-of-government system) data for in-flight or future requirements, are hosted within a Certified Strategic or Certified Assured cloud service provider or data centre.
The Certified Strategic certification provides government with certain ownership or control conditions, of which AUCloud’s purpose and ownership intent are fully aligned.
Recent reports from Gartner (Hype Cycles and Emerging Technologies) and IDC (Deploying the Right Data to the Right Cloud) highlight the emergence of ‘Sovereign Cloud’ and the increased importance it will have alongside the global public cloud platforms.
VMware’s announcement of AUCloud and nine other Sovereign Cloud providers around the globe, demonstrating sovereign ownership control, aligned with government best practices, data residency and jurisdictional certainty, is another clear indication of the trend.
The identification of VMware sovereign cloud providers enables government and regulated industry customers to access cloud services with confidence that the confidentiality, integrity and availability of their sovereign data can be assured with the security, compliance and inter-operability expected from VMware technologies.
Phil Dawson
Recognised locally by the relevant authorities, customers and their service partners and now by world leading technology partner VMware for their sovereign specific cloud capabilities, AUCloud boasts case studies deploying thousands of VMs in seconds through code, virtual desktops services underpinning national university learning and business functions and support for a range of business critical environments.
According to Dawson, “The combination of our deep investment in security, recognition of our sovereign credentials and the scope and complexity of environments we host, demonstrates that government, defence and critical national industries can operate their mission critical national security environments with complete confidence from within a robust, highly secure, agile sovereign cloud infrastructure.
“Importantly, the sovereign data protection we provide includes not just customer data but the account data, metadata, monitoring and analytic data that is associated with it – namely the kind of data that global operators transmit offshore to their overseas support centres or corporate analytics farms.
“AUCloud’s security capabilities exceed Australian government best practice for data classified up to PROTECTED. We are built on certified VMware services and operated by Australian security cleared personnel within an ASX publicly listed company (“SOV’) that is owned by Australian citizens. We are delighted by the recognition that our investment and hard work is creating and look forward to solving more data challenges for Australian government, defence, critical national industry communities and their chosen service partners in the future.”
Highly secure, sovereign cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
AUCloud provides highly secure, standards based, sovereign cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to Australian Government and Critical National Industry communities. This includes Federal, State and Local Governments and CNI organisations such as telecommunications, electricity, energy, financial services and similar utility providers.
Managed, operated and monitored in Australia by security cleared Australian citizens, all services and data hosted by AUCloud remains in Australia. This includes all customer data, account data, metadata, support data and derived analytics data.
