IBM Brings Government Cloud to California State

California Department of Technology and IBM today announced CalCloud, a statewide cloud services platform that will serve more than 400 state departments and local government entities.

Instead of separate IT systems for each department, the CalCloud service lets government entities share a common pool of computing resources. It’s a much more efficient and centralized approach to individual islands of cloud usage across departments.

CalCloud is designed to allow around-the-clock access to a shared pool of easily configurable resources, including compute, storage, network and disaster recovery services. CalCloud meets the state's security standards based on National Institute of Standards (NIST) for cloud based services and FedRAMP -- the federal security standard.

There is immediate access to back-end services. CalCloud is available to all municipalities and state and local government agencies on a subscription basis. The California Department of Technology is providing tools that offer access to IT services. So far, more than 20 state departments have requested IT services through CalCloud.

IBM is supplying and managing the infrastructure while the California Department of Technology manages all other aspects of the service offering. IBM is working closely with the state to transfer essential knowledge and best practices in security and systems integration to the Department of Technology.

“CalCloud is an important step towards providing faster and more cost effective IT services to California state departments and ultimately to the citizens of California,” said Marybel Batjer, secretary of the Government Operations Agency.

In addition to IBM, CalCloud partners include AT&T for network services, IT and consulting firm Alexan International and KPMG to drive CalCloud’s adoption rate and migration to the new service.

There has been a strategic imperative to unify and consolidate IT spread across disparate departments in government. CalCloud offers a consolidation point and might spur more states to provide something similar to their local departments and entities.

“Transforming how the State of California delivers technology services is not only more efficient and cost effective, it will spur innovation with cloud capabilities that are open and secure,” said Erich Clementi, senior vice president, IBM Global Technology Services. “California is setting an example for other states on how to use cloud technology to improve coordination across agencies and municipalities while reducing the barriers and duplication that can impede the delivery of government services.”