Revera is delivering government-approved IaaS services to the doorstep of research and education organisations connected to the REANNZ network.

The Spark-owned cloud services provider has connected the company’s Homeland data centres in Takanini and Trentham to REANNZ’s high-speed network, providing an opportunity for the crown-owned network operator’s 40 members to directly link to Revera’s All of Government IaaS catalogue.

The connection effectively removes network procurement costs for REANNZ members looking to buy government-approved infrastructure services.

“We’re about facilitating technology choices for our members,” says REANNZ chief engagement manager Douglas Harré. “The advantage of a direct high-speed connection between our network and a data centre is lower cost – our members don’t have to procure network services to access government-approved IaaS.”

REANNZ members Callaghan Innovation and ESR are the first REANNZ members to take advantage of the direct connection to Revera.

Harré said REANNZ’s research-grade network enabled its members to make big data transfers as they developed and shared research.

Revera business development manager of emerging products, Daniel Fairbairn, said increasing data volumes and workloads was driving up network connectivity costs.

“In the rush to cloud services it’s easy to underestimate the significance of a network connection, both in terms of cost and performance. No one likes those sorts of surprises.”

Launched in 2012/13, the All of Government IaaS catalogue allows public sector organisations to buy virtual servers, storage services, and backup services from a panel of government-approved providers.

The Government Chief Information Officer (GCIO) commissioned an external review in 2016 that found there have been measureable financial benefits from the more than 20 shared ICT services that the GCIO manages, including IaaS.

The scale of the benefits has increased over time, and the review considered that the government’s target of $100 million in annual savings would be achieved in July 2017. The target was exceeded by March 2017.