Healthcare.gov Contracts Extra 100 TB of Cloud Storage from Terremark to Handle Demand

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This article originally appeared at The WHIR

Healthcare.gov is adding 100 terabytes of cloud storage to handle the increased workload during the current open enrollment period that runs until Feb. 28, 2015, according to a report on Tuesday by FCW.

According to contracting documents posted Monday on the FedBizOpps website, Verizon Terremark, the service provider for the Healthcare.gov website, is getting a $1.8 million modification to its existing cloud hosting deal. The modification includes storage space and accompanying licenses, according to FCW.

“The goal of this effort is to support the addition of 100TB of storage, three Layer 7 licenses, six 5GB Virtual F5 licenses, and two 3GB Virtual F5 licenses,” the contract said. “The items that are being added are in preparation for Open Enrollment 2015.”

The services, valued at $1.8 million, will run through March 31, 2014.

The storage shortfall was detected during the readiness testing conducted in October 2014 where it was revealed that the “current storage is not sufficient to sustain operations through open enrollment.”

“Based on the program’s requirements to maintain data and to have it available upon request for successful enrollments, tracking, and auditing purposes, the storage needs to be increased to support notices and increased applicants, and additional servers.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it would not have been able to predict the storage shortfall.

“The program is in its infancy and CMS has no historial evidence upon which to base systems performance parameters,” the contract said.

“Not having the additional storage in place and re-balanced to receive and store the data will cause major losses in the insurance enrollment information as well as program application capabilities.”

Healthcare.gov recently extended its agreement with Terremark in order to ensure a smooth transition to HP, the new service provider for the marketplace.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/healthcare-gov-contracts-extra-100-tb-cloud-storage-terremark-handle-demand