DHS moving public websites to the cloud

The Homeland Security Department is the latest and one of the largest federal agencies to move its public websites into the cloud.

The department has adopted a cloud services solution provided by contractor CGI Federal Inc. for hosting, managing and securing public-facing websites including DHS.gov, FEMA.gov and USCIS.gov, the company announced Sept. 29.

CGI also will provide enterprise development services along with integration, testing, training, staging, troubleshooting and production services under the three-year contract valued at $1.8 million, the company said.

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Websites in the cloud typically are hosted on shared servers and managed under a service contract. The Obama administration has been promoting a “cloud-first” policy to encourage agencies to use Web-based cloud computing services rather than purchasing and operating servers and other computer hardware themselves.

Several other agencies, including the White House and Federal Communications Commission, have moved their websites to the cloud.

“DHS’ move to the cloud is being watched closely as it’s one of the largest agencies to put the ‘cloud-first’ policy into practice,” Eric Wolking, senior vice president of CGI, said in a news release.

He said CGI’s cloud contains all of the required enterprisewide security, service delivery and hosting capabilities that are needed to reduce costs while delivering improved services.

CGI is a wholly owned operating subsidiary of CGI Group Inc. The contract with DHS was under the Public Cloud Web Content Management Services contract, which was awarded under the General Services Administration’s infrastructure-as-a-service blanket purchase agreement.