In July 2018, amazee.io (along with their partner Salsa Digital) was selected by the Australian Government (https://www.finance.gov.au/about-us/news/2018/announcement-new-service-provider-govcms) to take over the hosting and development of their “whole-of-government” hosting platform, GovCMS. As amazee.io was only two years old at the time, and the Lagoon platform was even newer, this presented a steep learning curve -- and a great opportunity -- for the team to further demonstrate the viability of open-source as a solution for Government.
In this talk, I will cover how we approached various procurement challenges, met extensive security requirements, and architected to maximise redundancy and stability. I will also discuss how we were able to rapidly evolve the Lagoon platform to meet that initial brief, migrate over a hundred sites from the existing platform in a single weekend, and detail how we continue to collaborate to meet the ever changing needs of this flourishing Australian Government program.
About GovCMS: Run by the Australian Government Department of Finance, GovCMS provides Drupal content management and web hosting services for Federal, State, and Local Government agencies. Now counting over 300 sites and hundreds of millions of pageviews, the program, now in its fifth year, continues to exceed all growth expectations and ensures the stability of numerous vital public communication channels.