US government agency, the Department of Interior (DOI) has selected IBM in a deal worth up to $1bn (£600m) as it bids to shift its IT into the cloud.
The contract is an "indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity" (IDIQ) contract spanning over a ten year period.
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The DOI, which looks after 20 per cent of US land, will use IBM's data storage, virtual machines, database, web hosting, development testing and SAP application hosting. It will also have access to IBM's Smart Cloud for government, Smart Cloud for enterprise and IBM AIX cloud.
Other US government agencies will also be able to access these IBM cloud solutions through the DOI Foundation Cloud Hosting Services vehicle.
The Cloud Hosting Services programme will enable requests for quotes or task orders to be issued on behalf of other government customers including both civilian agencies and the US Department of Defense.
The DOI currently spends in excess of $1bn a year on IT and the move to a cloud computing model comes as part of a wider commitment to save $100m a year between 2016 and 2021. The department then aims to use the savings to fund investments in new business capabilities and applications.
