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Australia’s intelligence agency is to embark on a major overhaul of its IT infrastructure that will see the department adopt a hybrid cloud solution across Microsoft Azure.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is seeking either one of more system integrators to develop greenfield solutions and run the technology platforms under the security classifications of ‘Protected’, ‘Secret’ and ‘Top Secret’.
According to a request for expression of interest (REOI), the platforms need to be seamlessly connected, agile, sustainable and scalable to support enterprise-wide capabilities.
The project will cover six primary areas, with an overarching common enterprise technology platform (ETP) for compute, storage, networking, security, infrastructure orchestration and shared services. According to ASIO, this will form the blueprint for the agency's future technology infrastructure.
ETP particulars will include a managed Microsoft Azure Protected platform, externally hosted; a managed Microsoft Azure Secret platform, hosted either externally or on-premises; and a Microsoft Azure Top Secret platform with components provided as a managed service or "as a managed service in its entirety", hosted on-premises.
Last year, Microsoft was granted Protected certification for both Azure and Office 365 by the Federal Government's Australian Signals Directorate.
ASIO said it envisaged the cloud as being delivered via infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service and software-as-a-service.
Where the cloud is not appropriate, the platform will use VMware, the REOI said. The ETP framework will underpin a core data platform (CDP), a cross domain solution (CDS), application migration, digital experience plus development and support.
The CDP will provide the foundation for advanced data management and analytics capabilities to give staff “access a greater breadth of data”, according to the RFI.
Meanwhile, the CDS will provide for the controlled movement of data across the enterprise, while the required application migration will see the provider deploy actual applications and tools as well as migrating others when required.
The digital user experience platform (DUXP) will sit above the applications layer and will provide a user interface to display insights from applications and CDP data analytics.
Support for either or both ETP and the CDP will form the last component of the project. Service providers have until 24 April to respond to the REOI.
