Unisys, ERT put NOAA employees in the cloud

Unisys Corp., acting as subcontractor to Earth Resources Technology Inc., announced  the completion of its $11.5 million project to transition 25,000 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees and other users to the Google Apps for Government e-mail and collaboration platform.

It is the largest transition to Google’s cloud services by a federal agency to date, according to Unisys’ Jan. 19 news release.

NOAA expects the new tools will help increase user productivity within the agency and reduce operational costs by about 50 percent compared to in-house solutions, the announcement said.

Unisys provided engineering and transition services to NOAA, including communications management and training.

The ERT team, which also included Google and Tempus Nova Inc., completed all work on schedule, allowing NOAA to transition to the new system in December 2011.

Last year, Unisys also worked with the General Services Administration to transition all of its users to Google Apps for Government for e-mail and collaboration services.

Unisys, of Blue Bell, Pa., ranks No. 40 on Washington Technology’s 2011 Top 100 list of the largest federal government contractors.