The migration process occurred during the past six months, in a move that agency officials believe will increase employee productivity and reduce overall IT costs.
Martha N. Johnson, administrator of GSA, said going to the cloud will save GSA millions annually in taxpayer dollars.
“We expect that using a cloud-based system will reduce e-mail operation costs by 50 percent over the next five years and save more than $15.2 million for the agency in that time,” Johnson said in a statement.
Other benefits of using Google Apps for Government include increased uptime and availability of agency data and collaboration capabilities such as remotely connecting to colleagues through video chat and shared documents. In addition, mobile devices were also moved over to the system.
Security is also beefed-up for e-mail users. The new system features enhanced user authentication and Google says its cloud offering is Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)-compliant.
