LINZ' massive ASaATS project will be built on and use AWS
The multimillion-dollar rebuild of Land Information New Zealand's primary business application will use Amazon Web Services (AWS) for its underlying hosting platform and core services, according to recently released tender documents.
LINZ, which operates systems supporting land title registration and changes, has a multi-cloud strategy requiring support across the New Zealand Government cloud, Microsoft Azure and AWS.
"AWS is already used by LINZ with significant growth expected over the next few years," the document stated. "This platform is primarily used for bespoke development with a mix of external and internal developers."
Microsoft Azure will be used Microsoft-based commodity environments, and platform and software based services such as Dynamics and Office 365.
"Currently this is being supported by an incumbent support provider but this will be reviewed in the near future," LINZ added.
Meanwhile, the NZ Government cloud is home to the majority of LINZ servers, however, many of these will be migrated onto AWS and Azure depending on their characteristics.
A "small subset" of servers required to be kept on-shore due to security and performance restrictions will remain.
To support its plans, LINZ also wants to create a support contract with a partner who will provide the thought leadership and operational support of all LINZ IT based services running in AWS.
Services will include architecture, build, cloud operations, migration, application management, security, DevOps, cloud optimisation and project support.
The tender revealed that several business groups and primary line of business applications will embrace public cloud, agile and DevOps practices, including LINZ's replacement for LandOnLine.
This application, called the advanced survey and title services project (ASaTS) is a five-year project expected to cost more than $42 million, though the business case supporting it has not yet been released.
The tender stated that LINZ will continue to move away from bespoke applications where possible through the adoption of PaaS and SaaS based services.
SaaS combined with public cloud and the need to interface with existing infrastructure is resulting in complex support models and an increase in the number of contracts LINZ will have to manage.
LINZ is also signing up the NZ Government AWS Cloud Framework Agreement (CAF), a pan-government contract that allows government agencies to buy public cloud services from AWS under standardised terms.
LINZ has around 230 servers within the Government cloud, 51 in AWS and none in uptake in Azure at present.
Windows is the primary operating system used however there is a small pocket of Ubuntu servers used in the Land Information Business Group.
"If we make the assumption there is a 47.5 per cent servers migrated to AWS, 47.5 per cent migrated to Azure and five per cent remain in the Government cloud this equates to 109 servers that could potentially move to AWS in some capacity on top of the 51 servers already there," the tender stated.
The total number of servers anticipated in AWS would be approximately 160 servers.
