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johnnysoftwareFeb 3, 2012
Which cloud?
viralinFeb 3, 2012
Cumulonimbus.
kanundraFeb 3, 2012
This article is pointless, it doesn't state what cloud service they moved to. It sounds like they needed to consolidate to a less complex system REGARDLESS of moving to the cloud.
wangchung105Feb 3, 2012
It implies that they moved to Google Apps which they did.
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2012/01/noaa-moves-25000-to-google-apps.html
jaketyson85Feb 4, 2012
well if u would have actually READ the article u would have picked up on the fact that they outsourced this massive project to india while our computer programmers in america are all forclosures and ebts!
kanundraFeb 4, 2012
Actually I did READ the article. Like I said above, the article didn't mention which cloud service they used. Maybe you should reread it.
rusty0101Feb 4, 2012
You're right. It does not say which cloud NOAA moved to. It says that the IT director for NOAA bypassed the consultant phase by asking another agency IT director what they had done, and how it had worked. That agency indicated they went with Google Apps, and that it had saved something like $12 million. It then explains that the NOAA transition to cloud based e-mail was smooth, mostly because they were able to provide needed training to the people in NOAA. So yes, you are right that they didn't explicitly state that NOAA moved to Google Apps as well, but based on whom they did consult with, and the decisions made by that agency, It's a reasonable assumption for most people that NOAA went with that as a recommendation. And from other comments it appears that Google Apps is where they went. But no, this story on saving money by asking other agencies what they did, rather than hiring a consultant, doesn't say that. It's implied that the solution chosen was not the important part of the decision in as far as hiring a consultant goes. The important part was that this transition didn't cost the taxpayer a bundle of money to hire someone to do such research as already had been done and was available.
onedeepFeb 4, 2012
As a NOAA employee, I can tell you 100% it was Google.
As a NOAA employee, I can also tell you that while the transition to Gmail was pretty seamless, the transition to Google Calendar has been very rough. So the rosy picture painted in the last two paragraphs is only accurate if you focus solely on Mail.
Finally, I am pretty confident that NOAA spent quite a bit of money prepping for a move to Exchange in 2010, only to can the process at the 11th hour. At least that is the word on the street. So I am not sure how much money was actually saved if you count that process as well.