Dimension Data Australia has joined the handful of service providers awarded with the “protected” classification level on the exclusive but growing Australian Signals Directorate’s (ASD’s) Certified Cloud Services List (CCSL).
Dimension Data has been designated the “protected” classification level for Protected Government Cloud (PGC) on the ASD’s list.
Just three other service providers have been awarded the “protected” status to date. It was revealed in September last year that Macquarie Telecom had been granted the “protected” classification for GovZone (secure cloud).
Macquarie Telecom’s certification followed several months after Sliced Tech and Vault Systems both had services added to the CCSL, with both suppliers claiming some of the first services certified for use with Federal Government information classified at the “protected” level.
As reported by sister publication, Computerworld, Sliced Tech and Vault Systems both had cloud services included on the CCSL from 2015, but until March 2017, the services only came with the “Unclassified - Dissemination Limiting Markers (DLM)” information certification -- meaning for use with data that is not classified but may be sensitive and is not intended for public release.
Now, Dimension Data has joined Macquarie Telecom, Sliced Tech and Vault Systems as a provider able to handle “protected” Government information.
"We've completed 'protected' certification for all of our cloud delivery models," Dimension Data Australia's cloud services general manager, David Hanrahan, told ARN.
According to Hanrahan, Dimension Data's new certification enables it to offer Government agencies its full suite of cloud services, positioning the company well to build upon its existing public sector work.
The certification process, which Hanrahan describes as "onerous", saw the company conduct the design and implementation related to the requirements to achieve compliance internally, while engaging a third party for InfoSec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) assessment.
Meanwhile, there are no fewer than nine suppliers on the CCSL with the “Unclassified DLM” classification level for various cloud services, including Vault Systems, Sliced Tech and Macquarie Government.
Among the other suppliers with this certification level are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, ServiceNow, IBM and Education Services Australia.
The ASD, an intelligence agency that sits within the Department of Defence, revealed in June last year it had expanded the range of Microsoft Azure and Office 365 services for inclusion on the CCSL, giving local Microsoft partners greater traction among government clients in terms of the cloud services they can offer clients.
With the ASD formally certifying dozens of additional Microsoft cloud services across Azure and Office 365 as “unclassified DLM”, the company now has around 50 cloud services approved by the certification scheme.
The certification provides assurance to public sector customers in government that cloud service providers have appropriate and effective security controls in place for the processing, storage, and transmission of sensitive data, the majority of government, healthcare, and education data in Australia.
In September last year, ServiceNow joined the growing list of cloud services providers to be certified for inclusion on the Federal Government’s secure cloud list.
Inclusion on the ASD’s CCSL gives providers – along with certain resellers partnering with the selected vendors – the ability to vie for public sector work that requires an IRAP security assessment, along with other security checks and balances.
To win its own spot on the list, ServiceNow was audited by an independent assessor endorsed under the IRAP initiative, which is governed and administered by ASD.
