The Australian Defence Department has signed large contracts with local firm Canberra Data Centres (CDC) for hosting, as well as with Data#3 for Microsoft Azure cloud services.

The defense department recently signed an AU$91.5 million (US$64.2m) contract with Canberra Data Centres (CDC). The contract, running from July 2022 to July 2025, is for ‘Data Centre Services.’

The deal comes as CDC’s other main deal with Defence – an eight-year, AU$48 million ‘Data Pod’ contract – is set to expire in September. Innovation Aus reports that the deal has pushed CDC’s work with the Australian Government past the AU$1 billion (US$702m) mark, according to public tender documents disclosing the 288 contracts it holds or has previously held.

The company recently signed a hosting deal with Clean Energy Regulator; a Government body responsible for accelerating carbon abatement for Australia. Like with Defence, the AU$84,000 contract runs from July 2022 to July 2025.

Several Australian governmental departments have left Global Switch's Ultimo data center in Sydney after Chinese investors took control of the company, with many departments leaving for CDC facilities.

Transport for New South Wales, the Department of Home Affairs, Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Australian Digital Health Agency, and the Australian Communications Media Authority are amongst those to have all left the Ultimo facility.

Defence was first to announce its intention to exit the facility in 2017, but has been delayed. The original plan – estimated to cost AU$200m (US$151m) – was to leave by the time the contract expired in 2020. However, the department extended its tenure in the facility in an AU$53.5 million (US$41.2 million) deal in October last year after the migration plans were delayed due to the scale of the undertaking, with the new contract running until September 2025.

Defence has also signed a large contract with Data#3 for Microsoft Azure services. First reported by ITnews, the Department of Defence and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWER) both entered new contracts with Data#3 in July, replacing now-expired deals established in 2019. A spokesperson for Defence told ITnews that its AU$109.4 million (US$76.8m) contract covers “Microsoft Azure services as well as Microsoft enterprise subscriptions” over the next three years. For DEWR, the AU$52.9 million (US$37.1m) contract covers “on-premises and as-a-service products and licensing for the department," a spokesperson said.

Data#3 has been the government’s exclusive Microsoft license reseller for nearly 15 years, having scored the lucrative deal back in 2008 and won it back twice in the years since.

AWS is also winning Australian government contracts; the Victorian and New South Wales governments have signed with the US cloud provider. Other Australian departments and agencies to recently sign deals with AWS include the Bureau of Statistics (AU$2.75m), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (AU$5.87m), IP Australia (AU$7m), and Geoscience Australia ($12.3m).