The Federal Government has made it easier for departments to host their services on international cloud servers, with changes to official ICT policy.

The new procurement guidelines allow Agency Heads to give approval for proposals to place information either on offshore or domestically-hosted (onshore) cloud networks.

The new guidelines titled Information Security Management Guidelines—Risk management of outsourced ICT arrangements (including Cloud) are available online, while details of the changed policy are accessible here. 

In a joint statement from Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, Attorney-General George Brandis and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the three spruik the potential benefits of cloud-based services.

“The Government is committed to the use of cloud,” their statement reads.

“To further encourage the adoption of cloud, we have streamlined the decision making process for agencies considering cloud.

“By adopting cloud, the Government will be able to deliver better and more efficient services. The Government procures approximately $6 billion of ICT services annually, but only a fraction of this is spent on cloud services.

“Government departments and agencies are now required to consider cloud first where it is appropriate for their ICT requirements.

“We want to see a greater adoption of cloud services and cut through the red tape generated by the process developed under the previous government,” the statement from Mr Turnbull and Senators Brandis and Cormann says.

Cloud computing is a name given to computer services with decentralised elements. In basic terms - instead of storing a program or file on the computer with which it is used, a ‘cloud’ approach would store the item on a computer available remotely, so that it can be accessed by multiple users or on multiple devices.