GSA recently issued a request for quotation for a cloud services brokerage it is considering as a way to more efficiently purchase and manage IT cloud services for agencies, of a kind that has reportedly already been deployed in the Texas Health and Service Agency. Its CTO at the time, Mohammed Farooq, developed a software platform that became cloudMatrix. Farooq then founded Gravitant – http://www.gravitant.com/ – to promote cloudMatrix, which the company says allows “customers to select the optimum cloud services (PaaS, IaaS, SaaS) and managed services for their needs” and helps them “collaboratively construct and deploy complete IT solutions at the best cost.”
GSA is seeking quotes for a pilot to test out a similar cloud brokerage for the federal government, or an entity that manages the use, performance and delivery of cloud services, and negotiates relationships between cloud providers and consumers.
In a request for information – RFI, issued in July, GSA said it is specifically seeking to augment the IT cloud service offerings provided by the Cloud Computing Services Project Management Office in the Federal Acquisition Service Integrated Technology Services. The Cloud PMO currently offers cloud IT services to federal, state, local and tribal governments through the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) and the Email-as-a-Service (EaaS) BPA.
According to the Government Product News website, Farooq’s cloudMatrix idea enabled Texas to “simulate cross-provider provisioning, and estimate cost prior to deployment,” which is a platform that is consistent with the Administration’s shared-first mantra and could well be on the horizon for federal IT procurement.
