Aquilent Selected for 5 Year $100M Cloud Deal with GSA
Government cloud specialist Aquilent has secured a 5 year deal reported to be worth up to $100M with the General Services Administration. The GSA’s deal is being referred to as a blanket purchase agreement which means that the services involved in the contract aren’t yet defined. The GSA was able to award the deal through its Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies. Government technology analysts mention that the deal was structured so that agencies within the GSA have a streamlined approach at acquiring cloud services.
Aquilent specializes in providing technology solutions for the government that are guaranteed to be compliant with congressional mandated standards. The agreement says that Aquilent will provide services related to cloud hosting, cloud managed services and cloud infrastructure. Aquilent will also provide cloud security consulting and internal cloud based development platforms.
GSA employees will gain access a cloud management portal called Olympus Powered by Aquilent. This portal allows employees to rapidly procure cloud services without having to possess a tremendous amount of cloud expertise. Aquilent will utilize Amazon Web Services to deliver government cloud infrastructure for services specially tailored for the GSA. Aquilent has earned Premier Consulting Partner Status within the AWS Partner Network for the past three years in a row.
Aquilent CTO Mark Pietrasanta is quoted in a press release as saying, “This is a truly innovative solution for GSA.” Pietrasanta explains, “All of GSA now has easy access to nearly any kind of cloud hosting and cloud-managed services necessary to achieve their mission and enhance citizen engagement. Providing better service to our citizens is the bottom-line value, and we’re thrilled to partner with GSA on enabling this through the use of advanced cloud services.”
This 9 figure deal involving the GSA and Aquilent further highlights the US Government’s commitment to its cloud first policy first set forth in 2010. Many analysts believe we will see a rise in blanket purchase agreements being used by the government in order to more rapidly divvy out cloud resources among federal agencies.
