Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is seeking quotations for the provision of services to migrate its on-premises applications to a cloud-hosted environment. The shift to cloud, which is part of the wider AUD 106.2 million five-year Digital Uplift Program approved in the federal government’s 23-24 budget, has an initial stat date of 15 December 2025 and will run for three years plus extensions.
DFAT’s uplift program was described as a high number of discrete projects improving collaboration across government and addressing cyber security vulnerabilities across the department’s global network, which supports all agencies with a presence overseas, ensuring compliance with federal government cybersecurity strategy and policy. The RFQ closes in four weeks.
DFAT was reportedly the first major federal government agency to trial Microsoft’s protected-level public cloud service in 2018 and is a known consumer of Office 365. The department’s shift to cloud will spell positive news for sovereign data centre providers like Canberra Data Centres (CDC), through which the vendor has a long-standing strategic partnership.
Last week, for example, CDC confirmed it has secured approximately 100MW of new contracted capacity. Infratil CEO Jason Boyes said that announcement underscored strong ongoing demand in the Australasian data centre market. “This announcement provides high visibility that CDC remains on track to double FY25 earnings by FY27. With other contracts signed since May, approximately 95% of forecast lease revenues are now under contract, and we remain confident in contracting the remaining capacity,” he said.
Macquarie Technology Group (through Macquarie Cloud Services) is also a strategic partner with Microsoft, focusing on delivering Microsoft Azure services and solutions. Meanwhile, NextDC’s relationship with Microsoft stretches back over a decade.