Five-year tender for G-Cloud central government cloud service

Singtel also awarded renewal of cloud services bulk tender for the supply of public cloud services

Singapore, 15 May 2012 – Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel) today announced that it has secured two key tenders awarded by the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) to accelerate the Singapore Government’s adoption of cloud computing.

i. G-Cloud for Whole-of-Government

Singtel has been awarded a five-year tender to deploy a private cloud computing infrastructure on a whole-of-government basis. To be rolled out by the end of 2012, the G-Cloud marks the first private cloud infrastructure to be developed on such a scale to cover all government bodies in Singapore. Singtel will provide and maintain G-Cloud for an initial five years with the option for renewal of a further five years.

The G-Cloud is a whole-of-government private cloud infrastructure that is multi-tenanted and meets the required security assurance for the government. The G-Cloud will deliver benefits of cloud computing which includes virtualisation, multi-tenancy, automation with on-demand provisioning and rapid scalability of G-Cloud resources. The G-Cloud will address the different levels of security and governance requirements. It will also pave the way for the standardisation and sharing of computing resources and applications across all government agencies thus leading to greater agility and the lowering of IT operating costs. With innovation being one of the cornerstones of the G-Cloud’s design, its versatile and extensible platform can also be used as a test-bed to pilot new and innovative applications without upfront cost and asset of ownership.

The adoption of the G-Cloud services redefines the government sector’s delivery of e-services, both internally and to the public. G-Cloud opens the gateway for more government e-services to be delivered more quickly, securely, at lower costs and on-demand, anywhere and anytime.

Mr Bill Chang, Singtel’s Executive Vice President, Business Group said: “Singtel is honoured to be given this opportunity to pioneer the ground-breaking G-Cloud initiative for the whole of the Singapore government.  By relying on Singtel’s comprehensive suite of award winning, trusted end-to-end cloud capabilities, strong ICT expertise and track record, the Singapore government can streamline its service delivery to increase agility, improve efficiency, enhance productivity, lower capital expenditures and operating costs.”

“In addition, G-Cloud will enable all branches of the government to develop, deploy and scale up applications more quickly, efficiently and securely, thus increasing the scope of e-services and raising the standard of service delivery to all its stakeholders, particularly the public. This will enhance Singapore’s competitiveness in the long run and entrench our position as one of the world’s most competitive economies,” he said.

According to the World Economic Forum, Singapore was ranked second in the Networked Readiness Index in 2012 (1). The United Nations E-Government Survey 2012, which assesses a country’s e-government development based on website assessment, telecommunication infrastructure and human capital, has placed Singapore second in Asia and tenth globally (2).

ii. Renewal of public cloud services bulk tender

Singtel also scored another feather in the cap when it was awarded the Cloud Services Bulk Tender by IDA to offer public cloud services to the government. This is part of IDA’s plan to support the growth and competitiveness of Singapore industries by promoting the use of cloud services. The tender mandates Singtel to provide public cloud services to the government for two years, with the option of a further one year extension.

The public cloud services include compute, storage and software services that enable the Government to simply deploy the applications and projects in the cloud and pay for the usage without owning the IT infrastructure. This helps to reduce the total cost of ownership and improve business agility.

Since October 2008, Singtel has demonstrated its track record in providing public cloud services through the proven Alatum infrastructure. One of the key accomplishments was the deployment of Alatum infrastructure to deliver the IT requirements for the inaugural Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games event. This was the world's largest and most sophisticated use of cloud computing services in a global sporting event. Ever since, Singtel has continuously innovated and enhanced the public cloud platform to serve the needs of both the government and enterprise sectors. Driven by the needs for enterprises to regionalise, Singtel will enlarge the public cloud footprint into the region in business hubs to partner with businesses and support their ICT needs in Asia Pacific.  Also, Singtel will continue to harness the potential of emerging technologies by catalysing Fixed Mobile Cloud Convergence to innovate game-changing applications to meet the needs of the government and businesses.

“Through Singtel’s in-depth understanding, expertise and track record of the Info-Communications Technology (ICT) services landscape, Singtel has tailored our public cloud service to cater to their myriad requirements. By relieving companies of the complexities of managing IT systems and software, we help them enhance their productivity, increase business agility, reduce their capital expenditure and operating costs significantly. Singtel is one of the largest cloud service providers in the region which provides ICT resources that are delivered over reliable and secured fixed and mobile network infrastructure.  With Singtel's integrated and comprehensive Fixed Mobile Cloud capabilities, we will provide the Government and businesses with intelligent ICT services on-demand and on-the-move,” said Mr Chang.

Singtel’s sterling track record in providing both private and public cloud computing services has been acknowledged by its peers in the industry. To this end, Singtel has been conferred a number of prestigious awards such as the Best Cloud Service Provider at the 2011 Asia Communications Awards, Managed Service Provider of the Year at the Frost & Sullivan APAC ICT Award 2011 and Managed Services Provider of the Year, Computerworld Hong Kong Awards 2011.

(1) World Economic Forum, The Global Information Technology Report 2012: Living in a Hyperconnected World, 2012

(2) UN, United Nations E-Government Survey 2012: E-Government for the People, 2012