Government makes infrastructure services available to agencies

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Government agencies will soon be able to access commercial Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings from the federal government's cloud computing storefront, the General Services Administration recently announced.

The GSA announced it has awarded a contract to allow vendors to provide federal, state, local and tribal government entities with cloud storage, virtual machines and cloud-based web hosting services through its virtual store Apps.gov.

"Offering IaaS on App.gov makes sense for the federal government and for the American people," said federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra. "Cloud solutions not only help to lower the cost of government operations, they also drive innovation across government."

Before a vendor can make its products available, it must complete a certification and accreditation process. According to the GSA, the security of the services must meet federal guidelines for "moderate impact" data under the Federal Information Security Management Act, which governs federal cyber security requirements.

With almost $80 billion in 2010 alone, the federal government has the largest annual IT budget of any organization in the world. According to an IBM report, the Obama administration has been particularly focused on using cloud computing technologies to help improve government services.