By Curt Kolcun, Vice President, Microsoft US Public Sector
The past few months have marked a transformative time in government IT, with the State of California, the State of Minnesota and New York City embracing cloud computing. And now that momentum is carrying into the federal sector, as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today that it will become the first cabinet-level agency to move its e-mail and productivity applications to the cloud. USDA will transition 120,000 federal workers from on-premise messaging and collaboration to Microsoft’s BPOS-Federal cloud computing solution over the next four weeks. The migration to the cloud is part of USDA CIO Chris Smith’s vision to consolidate disparate messaging environments onto a single, unified platform, which will reduce costs, boost workforce productivity and improve communications and collaboration across the agency.
USDA is an incredibly complex enterprise, with a distributed workforce, 27 sub agencies, and a broad mission that touches everything from homeland security to food safety. Organizations like USDA require enterprise-grade collaborative capabilities like global address lists, full calendar synchronization, presence and video conferencing. Through the power of the cloud, USDA personnel will have better access to information and improved data sharing capabilities, all while reducing computing costs and building on existing investments.
The Microsoft Federal team is excited to be working with the USDA on this groundbreaking implementation. Chris and his team at USDA were looking for a cloud-based solution that was flexible, reliable, and secure. We know that government data is unlike any other data, which is why it’s essential that agencies know exactly where their information is being hosted. We built BPOS-Federal specifically for government agencies that require the highest levels of security, including a guarantee that all data will be housed in a dedicated infrastructure, located and maintained within the United States, and accessed only by US citizens that have undergone rigorous background checks. Our 25 years of experience serving government customers has confirmed what we’ve always known – security and privacy features must be baked into solutions from the ground up. It’s no different in the cloud, which is why our cloud solutions meet the highest security standards that exist today, including FISMA, ISO 27001 (the highest international standard for information security), SAS 70 Type I and II. USDA has also granted FISMA Authorization to Operate (ATO) for the Microsoft cloud infrastructure, certifying that it provides a trustworthy foundation for cloud services.
For more information on this exciting federal cloud implementation, check out the feature story on the Microsoft News Center which includes insight from USDA CIO Chris Smith!