The US Department of the Interior has pre-approved 10 vendors to be in a pool of companies that will compete for cloud hosting contracts with the department's agencies. Total value of the set of contracts is up to US$10bn, and each individual contract's value is capped at $1bn.
The department hopes this approach will speed up adoption of cloud services by its agencies, since all chosen vendors have gone through an extensive evaluation process. Interior also hopes this approach will ensure competitive prices for cloud services.
“The approach we've chosen also allows us to speed up our acquisition process, which in turn allows us to leverage this technology more quickly,” DOI representatives wrote in a blog post on the department's website. “We can now make our data and applications more accessible to the public, and to DOI employees across the country.”
The group of vendors consists of Autonomic Resources, CGI, Lockheed Martin, Unysis, IBM, Smartronix, Verizon, AT&T, Global Technology Resources and Aquilent, according to news reports.
The department hopes this move will accelerate its data center consolidation efforts under the government-wide Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative. It also supports a White House implementation plan for federal IT reform and the federal CIO's cloud-first policy, DOI representatives wrote.
Commenting on the announcement, Anne Altman, general manager, IBM US Federal, said, “Our Cloud offerings are backed by a long history of successful work in hardware, software and services wrapped in world renowned security offerings, unmatched R&D, and secure supply chains. We’re committed to infusing these capabilities, proven security and reliability, and leading-edge technology into our work with the US Department of the Interior over the next decade.”