The General Services Administration has canceled its for cloud infrastructure as a service request for quotations and will move to a new RFQ, GSA officials confirmed this afternoon.

In September, GSA extended the deadline for the RFQ saying that the agency wanted to give vendors more time.

This shift comes as the cloud environment has really evolved, GSA officials tell FederalNewsRadio.com’s DorobekINSIDER.

From GSA:

There was an Infrastructure as a Service RFQ that was canceled today. We are moving to issue a new RFQ. Both the definition of IAAS and the marketplace have evolved and matured since GSA began this procurement process. With this new RFQ, we hope to enable a robust pool of vendors and maximize industry participation providing federal customers with a wide range of IAAS offerings. With the rapid evolution of the Cloud Computing marketplace and the ever-present security needs of federal agencies, the new RFQ that will allow vendors to provide additional offerings with a higher level of security than was required in the original RFQ.

Industry sources say that GSA hopes to have a new RFQ out in the next 30 days.

Industry had been concerned because there were a lot of unanswered questions around the RFQ specifically — and cloud computing in general. And industry has been pushing GSA to address issues such as security and privacy, among others. Industry sources say those issues need to be addressed by GSA and the Office of Management and Budget.

The new RFP will be led by GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Communications, led by Dave McClure. GSA’s Office of Citizen Services operates USA.gov, which operates in the cloud.

Background:

From FederalNewsRadio.com’s FedCloudBlog: GSA’s Casey Coleman at the Gov 2.0 Summit

InformationWeek from Aug. 9, 2009: GSA Outlines U.S. Government’s Cloud Computing Requirements

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