Correction: A previous version of this article said IBM was the only company that had reached DISA at IL-5.
Dive Brief:
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The U.S. Army selected IBM to "build, manage and operate" a new cloud solution for its Army Private Cloud Enterprise, according to an IBM announcement. If the Army exercises all options, the five-year contract will be worth approximately $62 million.
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IBM will also provide the Army with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) support.
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The Army will move up to 35 applications to the private cloud in the first year, according to IBM. "With this project, we’re beginning to bring the IT infrastructure of the U.S. Army into the 21st century," said Lt. Gen. Robert Ferrell, the U.S. Army CIO. "Cloud computing is a game-changing architecture that provides improved performance with high efficiency, all in a secure environment."
Dive Insight:
IBM was able to secure the contract because right now it's one of the only companies authorized by DISA at IL-5 to run IaaS solutions on government premises, which the project required.
In gaining IL-5 authorization last year, IBM has set itself up to win a number of lucrative federal government cloud contracts. But other cloud providers likely aren't far behind. There is big business in the U.S. government, as agencies that rely on legacy tech look toward cloud services to further modernize and create a more agile environment.
