Finance picks Acquia as GovCMS service provider

The federal government has engaged digital business platform provider Acquia to support the provision of govCMS, the planned new government web content management system.

Under the contract, Acquia will provide a public-cloud based software-as-a-service to the Department of Finance.

The platform will use Drupal open-source software, as specified by the department in May when it launched a tender for a Drupal CMS.

The govCMS system will make use of Acquia’s Cloud Site Factory SaaS application, be delivered on the Acquia Cloud and will incorporate aGov, a Drupal distribution developed specifically for Australian government organisations.

In a blog post, Australian Government CTO John Sheridan said work migrating australia.gov.au and finance.gov.au - two of the largest sites scheduled for transferral to the new system - has now commenced.

“govCMS will be broadly available to Commonwealth Government entities from February 2015 ... I’m excited that, through govCMS, we’ll be offering a cost-effective content management and website hosting solution to Commonwealth entities,” he said.

More than 100 federal and state government organisations use Drupal as a web CMS, including the Department of Finance, the Department of Social Services, the Department of Environment and the Department of Employment.

Acquia was co-founded by Dries Buytaert - the founder and lead developer of the Drupal CMS - to provide products, services and support for Drupal implementations.

Image courtesy of Gábor Hojtsy under CC