The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will move its 25,000-user email system to the cloud-based Google Apps for Government by the end of the year at a cost of $11.5 million, the agency said in a statement Thursday.
NOAA will be the largest federal agency to move its email systems to the cloud so far, according to the statement. The cloud-based system should cost about half as much as developing an in-house system, the agency said.
Google Apps for Government is essentially a more secure version of the Web giant's free, Web-based systems, including gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs.
NOAA contracted with the vendor Earth Resources Technology to manage the move, the company said.
NOAA Chief Information Officer Joseph Klimavicz announced the contract at Google's Innovation in the Nation conference Thursday morning in Washington, Google said.
Joseph Marks
Joseph Marks covers government technology issues, social media, Gov 2.0 and global Internet freedom for Nextgov. He previously reported on federal litigation and legal policy for Law360 and on local, state and regional issues for two Midwestern newspapers. He also interned for Congressional Quarterly’s Homeland Security section and the Associated Press’s Jerusalem Bureau. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s in international affairs from Georgetown.
Addressing the 3 Biggest BYOD Security Threats
Mobile Apps: New Ways to Connect Government with Citizens
Continuous Monitoring As a Service: A Shift in the Way Government Does Business
sponsored
3 Ways Data is Improving DoD Performance
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
By using this service you agree not to post material that is obscene, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable. Although Nextgov does not monitor comments posted to this site (and has no obligation to), it reserves the right to delete, edit, or move any material that it deems to be in violation of this rule.