National Archives awards Unisys $7.2M contract for cloud email

Technology

National Archives awards Unisys $7.2M contract for cloud email

The National Archives and Records Administration awarded technology company Unisys Corporation a contract worth up to $7.2 million to oversee the transition...

Federal News Network Staff

November 29, 2012 11:12 am

1 min read

By Katie Howard
Federal News Radio

The National Archives and Records Administration awarded technology company Unisys Corporation a contract worth up to $7.2 million to oversee the transition of the agency’s 4,500 users to the cloud-based Google Apps for email and collaboration.

NARA said it expects the new cloud-based solution will help the agency perform its record management duties of safeguarding and preserving government records while giving its employees secure and efficient access to email and data as well as cut operational costs and improve the system’s uptime and availability, according to a release from Unisys.

The firm-fixed-price contract was awarded to Unisys under the General Services Administration’s IT 70 Schedule contract program. The five-year contract includes one base year followed by four one-year option periods at the discretion of the government. The base year is valued at $2.8 million, and the total contract is worth $7.2 million, if all options are exercised.

This contract is the first awarded to Unisys by the National Archives.

“We look forward to helping the National Archives cut costs and become more efficient as its employees perform their important and high-profile mission,” said Venkatapathi Puvvada, group vice president of civilian agencies for Unisys Federal Systems, in a statement.

The award follows a recent announcement by Unisys that it had completed the transition of 5,000 employees at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory to the cloud-based Google Apps.

Earlier this year, Unisys also completed a transition of 25,000 employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and last year, Unisys announced the transition of 17,000 GSA employees to the Google solution.

The project made GSA the first federal government agency to migrate all of its employees to a cloud-based email environment.

NARA tackling records management in the cloud