CenturyLink has been awarded a NASPO Value Point Cloud Solutions Master Agreement, a contract that will enable the company to sell its cloud solutions to state and local governments as well as authorized political subdivisions, such as school districts, counties, and cities.
“With many government agencies hosting highly sensitive information in the cloud today, maintaining a secure and reliable environment is more critical than ever,” said Marty Leavengood, vice president of GES sales at CenturyLink. “By securing this NASPO ValuePoint Cloud Solutions Master Agreement, CenturyLink can offer a wide variety of cloud services to the public sector–including Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). CenturyLink is proud to offer an innovative, secure and reliable cloud infrastructure that serves the vast needs of government agencies.”
CenturyLink will be offering the same cloud service that was authorized through FedRAMP in 2016, and the Master Agreement award will be valid through 2026.
According to Leavengood, state and local demand for cloud services is likely to experience a considerable increase in the future.
“Virtually every conversation we have with public sector clients, whether it’s a state agency or a school district, involves some element of cloud computing. It could be as simple as how to virtualize their computing needs, or as complex as managing applications or multicloud environments with security,” said Leavengood.
NASPO Value Point is a cooperative purchasing organization that enables state and local governments to leverage the purchasing power of all participating states. Cloud solutions contracts are led by the state of Utah, and CenturyLink is currently one of 23 contractors available through the cloud solutions contract portfolio.
According to the NASPO Value Point Cloud Award Justification Statement, representatives from Utah, Tennessee, Colorado, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Vermont evaluated cloud providers, who were required to obtain a score of at least 70 percent in technical qualifications scoring to receive an award.
“The success of this groundbreaking procurement is in large measure due to the excellent leadership by the State of Utah, the dedication of a very talented group of state procurement and IT professionals on the sourcing team, and collaboration with state CIOs,” Douglas Richins, NASPO ValuePoint’s chief executive officer, said in a press release about the Master Agreements.
“This agreement helps eliminate the need for the participating states to solicit bids or develop RFPs that can slow down implementations and impact budgets,” said Leavengood. “Because CenturyLink has been vetted by NASPO, no additional negotiations are required and governments can more quickly deploy our cloud and technology solutions.”
