The largest transition to Google’s cloud services by a federal agency to date

News Report

As announced in a recent press release, Unisys, acting as subcontractor to Earth Resources Technology, completed its $11.5 million project to transition 25,000 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employees and other users to the Google Apps for Government e-mail and collaboration platform.

NOAA expects the new tools to help increase user productivity within the agency and to reduce operations costs by about 50 percent compared to in-house solutions.

Within the project, Unisys provided engineering and transition services to NOAA, including communications management and training. The team, which also included Google and Tempus Nova, completed all work on schedule, and NOAA transitioned to the new system in December 2011.

This news follows an announcement last year that Unisys had worked with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to successfully transition all of its users to Google Apps for Government for email and collaboration services. Unisys also recently announced a contract with Battelle Energy Alliance to provide the Google Apps for Government email and collaboration solution for the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory.

The Technology

Remote workforces, government-industry teams and the increasing interaction among government workers, contractors and citizens lead to a heightened need for enterprise collaboration -- anytime, anywhere and without bounds.

To help agencies meet those challenges, Unisys has teamed with Google, the leading provider of cloud email and collaboration applications, to offer a full suite of enterprise integration services to ensure a successful transition to the cloud. Through Google Apps for Government, Unisys provides agencies with the ability to operate in a collaborative office environment without boundaries. This concept is feasible today and offers proven security, improved productivity and substantial cost savings.

Unisys implements the infrastructure necessary to integrate U.S. agencies' current environment with Google Apps for Government including Single Sign On, account provisioning and Exchange or Notes email. Unisys Enterprise Application Integration Services provides support services to integrate existing enterprise applications with Google Apps. The service provides integration with other cloud services such as Salesforce.com, COTS products such as Business Objects, and customer-developed applications such as those developed in Lotus Notes. Client-based applications can be web enabled without any interruption in workforce productivity.


References: Unisys (1,3), Washington Technology (2)