IBM to sign $62M cloud contract with US Army

Tech giant, IBM, has announced that it has signed a five year contract with the US Army to build, manage and operate a cloud solution for IT flexibility, efficiency and performance. According to the company if the Army exercises all options, the deal will be worth $62 million over the contract period. IBM claims that the solution is designed for the Army’s Redstone Arsenal, near Huntsville and is a part of the Army Private Cloud Enterprise (APCE) program, a one-year task order with four additional one-year options under the Army Private Cloud 2 (APC2) contract. Along with the infrastructural development, the company will also be extending IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) solutions, that will help the Army provision computing power on an as-needed basis for an efficient and cost-effective IT. The Army also will begin migrating applications to the private cloud, moving up to 35 applications to the private cloud in the first year. The tech company states that the project required Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Impact Level 5 (IL-5) Provisional Authorization. Giving the cloud provider the authority to manage controlled, unclassified information. The Army expects Big Blue to achieve DISA IL-6 (highest level) within one year, which would certify IBM to work with classified information up to “secret.”

“Clients today are increasingly looking at the cloud as a pathway to innovation. This IBM Cloud solution will provide the Army with greater flexibility and will go a long way toward mitigating, and, in some cases eliminating, the security challenges inherent with multiple ingress and egress points,” said Sam Gordy, General Manager, IBM US Federal.

The US Army also adopted an IBM hybrid cloud solution last year for its Logistics Support Activity. According to the company, using the solution, the Army connected its on-premises environment to the IBM Cloud for greater performance, scalability and security.