Отдел оборонной науки Австралии и транспортная служба Окленда стали лауреатами наград Red Hat за инновации в облачных технологиях

Australia’s Department of Defence Science and Technology Group is one of three organisations named as winners of the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2026 for Australia and New Zealand. Announced at Red Hat’s recent Summit in Melbourne, the science and technology arm of the Department of Defence won the Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure and Automation category, Auckland Transport won the Virtualisation and Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure category, and Westpac New Zealand won the Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure and Automation category. Shane Bennett, group leader cyber integration at DSTG, said the organisation had undergone a rapid technology change about 12 months ago after being asked to migrate away from particular vendor platforms. The move was not simply about removing a vendor; DSTG also had to ensure it could continue working with its international partners. “Taking greater ownership of our technology has given us the opportunity to simplify how we operate and create a scalable foundation for innovation. With Red Hat’s solutions, we have reduced manual effort and established a resilient, automated platform that enables us to accelerate the delivery of new capabilities at scale. As a result, our engineering teams can focus more of their time on driving meaningful improvements and delivering better outcomes for our customers,” Bennett said. Working closely with the Australian science, technology and innovation ecosystem, DSTG delivers scientific advice and solutions that provide capability enhancement for defence and the national security community. Ahead of a bi-annual strategic code collaboration exercise by the Five-Eyes Intelligence Alliance member nations, DSTG’s Cyber Integration team needed to rapidly establish a secure environment where researchers could collaborate, test and deploy new technologies, while supporting both traditional and modern workloads. With Red Hat OpenShift, DSTG established a secure platform supporting virtual machines, containers and future AI initiatives within its defence-accredited environment. DSTG said this approach reduced the time required to build the research environment from 14 weeks to two, while doubling the number of research sprints completed per hackathon cycle from six to 12. The platform has since become a blueprint for similar collaboration environments, providing DSTG with a flexible hybrid cloud foundation for future research and sovereign capability development. From roads and footpaths to cycling, parking and public transport,   Auckland Transport oversees the region’s transport network, including operating the local road network, planning and funding public transport, and promoting alternative ways to get around. Before computer vision, monitoring thousands of CCTV camera feeds was largely manual, reactive and difficult to scale. Without automated detection or analysis, the CCTV footage provided limited real-time intelligence and little actionable data and insight for improving traffic operations or planning future transport investment. Recognising that this approach was insufficient and reactive, the organisation pivoted from third-party legacy systems to a cloud-native approach using Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus, revolutionising its traffic management systems by developing "Theia," an in-house computer vision platform designed to monitor a network of CCTV cameras. The organisation said this strategic shift provided the automation, scalability, and reliability necessary to manage complex, distributed workloads across multiple sites. The implementation has enabled real-time traffic monitoring and incident detection, which significantly improves travel efficiency and safety across Auckland. These capabilities have extended across various divisions, such as rail, ferry, and parking, positioning Auckland Transport as a leader in smart city operations. Faced with growing operational complexity and the need to strengthen resilience, Westpac New Zealand set out to bring greater control of its critical technology infrastructure in-house, while reducing the manual effort involved in managing and maintaining its systems. As part of its ‘Core Infrastructure Initiative’, the bank successfully insourced and modernised its core application platform to mitigate regulatory risks, reduce vendor dependence, and overcome scaling constraints associated with its previous community-supported infrastructure. By standardising on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat Satellite, Westpac New Zealand established a modern hybrid cloud foundation and automated key infrastructure processes. This shift to a standardised, enterprise-supported technology stack has improved security by decommissioning obsolete nodes and significantly increased operational efficiency through the automation of critical lifecycle processes like patching and provisioning. The Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2026 celebrate organisations that are leading the way with open source. This year’s awards recognise 32 winners across 13 countries in the APAC region whose innovative use of Red Hat solutions is helping solve complex business challenges and deliver meaningful outcomes for their customers, employees, and communities.