Oracle Cloud secures strategic certification for Australia

Oracle has announced that its Oracle Cloud for Australian Government and Defence has attained the "Certified Strategic" level of the Hosting Certification Framework (HCF).

This certification, which represents the highest level of the HCF, enables Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to meet stringent security standards required by government customers to support their comprehensive technology portfolios. The certification is designed to facilitate enhanced capabilities for fulfilling their missions.

Rand Waldron, Vice President, Sovereign Cloud at Oracle, stated, "Government customers in Australia rely on Oracle Cloud to run their most critical workloads and to achieve better mission outcomes. Oracle has the tools they need to efficiently migrate and manage workloads in the cloud. With HCF certification, we can support the highest levels of security standards for PROTECTED workloads across local, state, territory, and federal government, as well as the Department of Defence."

The certification builds upon the previous "Certified Strategic" HCF status achieved by the Sydney and Melbourne Oracle Public Cloud Regions. It provides assurance that Oracle Cloud for Australian Government and Defence can support all levels of government and Defence requirements, with integrated security for mission-critical and modern workloads, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and simulations.

Stephen Bovis, Regional Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand, commented, "Achieving HCF certification for Oracle Cloud for Australian Government and Defence underscores our unwavering commitment to provide government with access to innovative technology while ensuring the highest levels of security and resiliency. We recognise that safeguarding critical data and infrastructure is paramount for the Australian Government and its citizens. This certification not only enhances our capability to help our customers meet the highest security standards but also empowers Australians with greater confidence in the protection of their data."

Oracle Cloud for Australian Government and Defence operates as a physically isolated environment from Oracle's other public and government cloud regions. It offers over 100 OCI services, including compute options such as CPU, HPC virtual machine, and bare metal configurations, along with storage solutions like block, object, and archive storage with new immutable object storage capabilities. Additional services provided include Oracle Database and Oracle Exadata Cloud Service, OCI FastConnect, OCI Identity and Access Management, OCI Key Management Service, and OCI Load Balancer.

Globally, OCI Government Regions are tailored to address public sector needs, offering features such as strong encryption, thorough auditing, robust security controls, and a dedicated community of users.

The HCF compliance status is listed on the HCF Certified Service Providers website, with the certification available to customers upon request. Oracle's commitment to security is further evidenced by achieving global certifications and attestations for key security standards, including IRAP at the PROTECTED classification in Australia, as well as SOC, ISO, PCI, and HIPAA certifications. These third-party assurance programmes demonstrate Oracle's dedication to meeting the security needs of its public sector clientele.