Several local, state and federal agencies have implemented cloud-based shared services as part of efforts to avoid on-site hardware maintenance costs, GCN reported Thursday.John Moore writes federal spending cuts have compelled agencies to boost adoption of shared services such as email, identity management and online payment systems.
“The days of people duplicating effort and building up their own fiefdoms for commodity services is fast going the way of the dodo,†said Joe Brown president of Accelera Solutions Inc.
The U.S. Postal Service’s Federal Cloud Credential Exchange recently tapped SecureKey Technologies Inc. to develop cloud-based authentication technology in an effort to help users gain access to federal online resources while saving costs, GCN reports.
Moore writes the General Services Administration also awarded contracts to 17 vendors in 2012 for the agency’s email services program, as well as blanket purchase agreement orders to several other providers in 2010 for an infrastructure-as-a-service project.
Tom Kireilis, acting director of GSA’s Technology Optimization Division and director of the agency’s Cloud Services Program Management Office, said the agency’s infrastructure as a service program has generated $44 million across eight agency customers.
