Sydney, Australia, 27 February - The Australian Department of Health & Aged Care has partnered with Google Cloud to consolidate its data assets for greater regulatory compliance, cost savings, and faster innovation.

Following a competitive tendering process, the Department selected Google Cloud based on its strong compliance and security credentials, including Certified Strategic Status for cloud services. Platform-level implementation of zero-trust security and data sovereignty controls was another key reason, as well as the speed and scalability of its analytics capabilities, and Google’s commitment to open standards.

The Department will initially migrate its Hadoop workloads to Google Cloud Platform before unifying data assets from a range of internal sources on a single repository managed by BigQuery—with major cost savings and faster time-to-market for new requirements and features expected as a result of the process. BigQuery will be a core part of the Department's new Enterprise Data and Analytics platform. Google Cloud will operate as one key pillar of the Department’s multicloud strategy, and play a critical role in providing support to deliver an integrated multicloud environment.

“Consolidating the Department's data and analytics capabilities has the potential to generate substantial savings while further bolstering compliance and security across sensitive national healthcare data — both key themes for the Australian Government’s long-term digital strategy,” said Brian Senior, Director, Public Sector, Google Cloud, Australia & New Zealand. “We’re delighted the Department of Health & Aged Care has selected Google Cloud to help govern and secure citizens’ personal data against increasingly sophisticated threats, while also creating a more conducive environment for digital innovation and skills development within Australia’s public sector.”

The Department will also benefit from Google Cloud’s open source commitment as part of its workforce strategy. As a first step, Google Cloud will train up to 70 Department staff, equipping them to take full advantage of the analytics platform within four months.

“The skills required for open source environments like Google Cloud’s are both more widely available and transferrable, expanding the career progression opportunities for public servants and improving government agencies’ ability to attract top talent,” added Senior.

The partnership builds on Google Cloud’s existing track record in helping the Australian public sector achieve regulatory compliance without compromising innovation and accessibility, including work with Australia Post, CSIRO, and the NSW Department of Customer Service.