The New South Wales Government has called for expressions of interest for a ‘comprehensive trial of cloud-based computing’.

State Minister for Finance and Services, Greg Pearce, said that the State Government acknowledged that cloud based IT solutions will form a large part of the future.

“We will test multiple cloud based systems across different scenarios and environments to ensure they are cost-effective, secure and efficient and if successful we will look at how they can be rolled out across government,” Mr Pearce said.

“The trial will test technical and regulatory questions, as well as opportunities to reduce the Government’s annual ICT expenditure.

“Importantly we need to know whether NSW Government agencies and ICT suppliers have the technical capacity for the wider adoption of cloud based solutions across the diverse range of government services,” he said.

The trial includes five pilot projects targeting:

  • Email as a service;
  • Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) as a service;
  • Shared Service multi-tenanted email as a service;
  • Infrastructure as a service; and
  • Desktop as a service, email and collaboration as a service.

Mr Pearce said work is underway with WorkCover, Fire and Rescue NSW, the Department of Trade and Investment and Businesslink who have already engaged with suppliers of cloud-based email, finance and case management services.

Expressions of interest documentation can be found at www.tenders.nsw.gov.au and enter the ID numbers 1300086 and 1300087.