Los Angeles sticking with Google cloud computing project

Friday, August 06, 2010

Despite recent turmoil regarding its contract with Google, the city of Los Angeles, California plans to move forward with its adoption of the search engine giant's cloud computing offering.

A vote among the Los Angeles City Council favored continuing the city's adoption of the managed network. The cloud project is worth $7.3 million.

Problems first arose with the project when Google and CSC missed the agreed-upon June 30 completion deadline. Google was responsible for shifting 34,000 municipal employee accounts to Google Apps by this time; however, security and performance issues involving the city's Department of Justice and the Los Angeles Police Department prevented successful cloud implementation.

As part of the agreement to move forward, Google agreed to cover the cost of the city's old system, Novell, until their cloud transfer is complete.

"L.A.'s move to the cloud is the first of its kind, and it's not surprising that it's taken a little longer than anticipated to identify and address all of the city's unique requirements. We're very pleased with the progress to date, and are committed to making this a great success for Los Angeles and a milestone for cloud computing," said Google Operations Director Jocelyn Ding.

In addition to Los Angeles, the U.S. federal government is making the switch to cloud computing, as Google recently developed Google Apps for Government, which the federal body has certified.