Objective, IBM boost Australian government cloud credibility

Efforts to promote Australian government organisations' uptake of cloud services have gotten a major boost with the launch of a government-focused information-sharing platform from Objective and the entry of IBM's full-service cloud platform into the country.

Objective Corporation's Objective Connect information-sharing platform is designed to alleviate widespread concerns over the fluidity of cloud-sharing platforms like Dropbox and Evernote, providing a file-sharing platform that complies with the Australian Government's Information Security Manual (ISM) for handling information up to and including PROTECTED classification.

Information is accessible via Web browser or through content management systems, with integrations in place for Microsoft SharePoint, HP TRIM and Objective ECM.

Delivered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, Objective Connect was included on AGIMO's recent Data Centre as a Service (DCaaS) Multi-Use List (MUL), which the company said was a vindication of cloud-delivered file sharing within the notoriously conservative government space.

"The challenge of sharing information has become critical to security-conscious organisations," Objective Corporation CEO Tony Walls said in a statement. "Objective Connect enables users to securely share information, in a way that enhances existing information management policies, investments and capabilities."

Objective Connect http://www.objectiveconnect.com is available as a free individual account or as a full-featured paid enterprise version.

Domestic cloud. One of the major benefits of the solution, Walls said, was its support for greater control over the flow of information. This addresses government's data sovereignty concerns – as does IBM's announcement that it has flipped the switch on an Australia-hosted implementation of its SmartCloud Enterprise (SCE+) infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) service.

SCE+, a hosted platform for supporting a broad range of enterprise-grade managed services, will run out of the IBM Data Centre in Sydney. This is the seventh SCE+ cloud centre globally and the first in the Asia-Pacific region.

The fully-managed, onshore platform keeps data and applications within Australian jurisdiction, which will satisfy the data-sovereignty requirements of many government organisations.

The multi-tenant platform offers features including flexible provisioning of Wintel, Linux and AIX servers and support services with full ITIL integration, monthly pricing and consumption-based billing, and access to other IBM SCE+ resources worldwide.

SCE+ "excels in all the critical requirements of a cloud solution – onshore and secure, managed service, enterprise grade, flexible, cost effective," said Dean Evans, Cloud Computing Executive for Global Technology Services with IBM Australia-New Zealand in a statement.

"We believe SCE+ addresses both a solution and platform gap that currently exists in the cloud market within this region. Particularly in Australia and New Zealand, there is both a readiness and need to move away from components and infrastructure, and towards shared platforms and software – which are really where the tangible benefits of a cloud solution come into play." – David Braue