Labor Department wants to put its e-mail in a cloud

The Labor Department is looking to cloud services vendors for input as it considers the feasibility of migrating its e-mail services for more than 21,000 users to a secure cloud.

Labor officials published a Request for Information at the Federal Business Opportunities website on May 26, asking about the availability and capabilities of software-as-a-service e-mail solutions in the marketplace.

To be considered, the solutions must be compliant with the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cloud Computing Architecture and must meet Federal Information Management Act Moderate-level Authority to Operate requirements.

Several federal agencies, including the General Services Administration and the Agriculture Department, have announced plans to move their e-mail services to the cloud, and the Office of Management and Budget has encouraged agencies to apply cloud-first strategies for IT solutions.

The Labor Department, in its RFI, said it is interested in e-mail, archiving, e-Discovery and collaboration services in the cloud, along with migration services to assist in the transition to the cloud.

In addition to being compliant with the national standards institute and federal information security guidelines, all cloud-based solutions must be based upon a scalable, flexible cloud architecture with five characteristics: on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity and measured service.

Vendors have until June 6 to submit information, which is to be done voluntarily and at their own expense.