NJVC® Announces SaaS Accelerate: Specialized Infrastructure Hosting and Managed Services Program for Software-as-a-Service Providers

VIENNA, Va., Aug. 15, 2012 —NJVC^® announces the release of NJVC SaaS Accelerate, a specialized infrastructure hosting and managed services offering designed to support the business needs of software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers.

Launched as part of NJVC’s broader managed and cloud hosting infrastructure-as-a-service offerings, SaaS Accelerate simplifies infrastructure management decisions for customers, and offers a tiered array of marketing support services focused on driving software utilization and customer success. “Cloud-based applications from SaaS suppliers are revolutionizing the software industry,” said Jody Tedesco, NJVC president. “NJVC SaaS Accelerate is designed to support these innovative enterprises with an array of customizable infrastructure support and business development services that can reduce the burden of maintaining a robust and secure infrastructure, while simultaneously helping companies access valuable business development support to help them grow.”

The infrastructure management components of SaaS Accelerate focus on the deployment of highly secure hardware, software and networking infrastructure for application hosting. NJVC deploys infrastructure stacks to support all major operating environments, and supports critical database services with cost-effective solutions. The NJVC infrastructure also meets or exceeds the specifications of critical regulations governing secure hosting services for private and public markets, including, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 16 (SSAE-16), Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) high and moderate, and Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP).

NJVC SaaS Accelerate also delivers a tiered package of marketing services designed to support business development, tied to mutually defined revenue targets and built into the hosting services fee structure. These services include public relations, joint marketing collateral, online marketing and other support programs. Customers selecting to enroll in SaaS Accelerate work with their NJVC advisors to define the package of services best suited to meet their infrastructure and business development needs.


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About NJVC^_®

With a focus on information technology automation, NJVC^® specializes in supporting highly secure, complex IT enterprises in business-critical environments. We offer a wide breadth of IT solutions to our customers, ranging from strategic consulting to flexible managed services in five business areas: Cloud Services, Cyber Security, Data Center Services, IT Services and Print Solutions. Our global workforce includes dedicated and talented employees, with 94 percent holding security clearances, located at more than 160 customer sites. We partner with our customers to support their missions. To learn more, visit www.njvc.com.

Contact

Michelle Snyder, NJVC, 703.893.7609, michelle.snyder@njvc.com
Audra Capas, 5StarPR, 703.437.9301, audra@5starpr.com

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2012)

Texas Cloud Computing Lessons Learned

Late last week  the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) released an important whitepaper that reviewed it's multi-year Pilot Texas Cloud Offering (PTCO). This project was designed to allow a small group of agencies to choose a virtual private cloud-based infrastructure as a service from a marketplace of service providers made available by a cloud broker. For this project, Texas DIR selected Gravitant and it's cloudMatrix technology. Gravitant’s self-service web portal, Texas Cloud Self-Service Portal (TCSP), allowed participating agencies to manage and support all phases of the engagement from solutioning to provisioning, operations and capacity management, and decommissioning. Gravitant also provided extensive architecture and solution support. Gravitant, as the cloud broker, established, negotiated, and governed the reseller agreements with the individual cloud service providers. They maintained a catalog of services, line items, and prices associated with each provider, which enabled them to facilitate cloud provisioning across multiple providers—a key feature for government agencies.

This approach was selected as it maximized the opportunity to produce the broadest spectrum of experiences for customers. The cloudMatrix software helped to normalize the multiple services available, creating an “apples-to-apples” comparison in pricing and functionality as much as possible. In addition, this solution provided a single, unified web interface for end users to design, procure, provision, monitor, and govern the services. The PTCO allowed DIR and the pilot agencies to a gain a greater understanding of cloud infrastructure offerings for state government and document options and issues with provider selection, pricing, access security, data security, credentialing, provisioning time frames, service levels, service remedy options, terms of use, billing models, interoperability, mobility, scalability, capacity management, provider compliance, and monitoring and licensing.

Pilot Texas Cloud Offering from Kevin Jackson

As far as I know, the PTCO represents the only proven operational model of the cloud brokerage concept deployed within a government setting. Among the lessons learned, this project showed that the use of a cloud broker can:

• Help government agencies screen their applications for cloud feasibility and prioritizing cloud migrations accordingly;
• Address the challenges of cloud model comparisons due to the variables in product offerings, including the business models, service levels, and package inclusions;
• Translate capacity requirements into provider line items, thus allowing for accurate estimation of cloud cost;
• Provide a cloud service order review or approval workflow facility, a function not normally provided by cloud service providers; and
• Provide a means to regulate payment across multiple government entities.

If you are interested in learning more about the results of this pilot project, download the complete report at http://www.slideshare.net/kvjacksn/pilot-texas-cloud-offering.

NJVC is partnering with Gravitant to bring this advance cloud brokerage technology to the federal marketplace.

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2012)

Lynn DeCourcey Showcased in ExecutiveBiz

Kudos to my colleague Lynn DeCourcey for her recent interview on  ExecutiveBiz.com!

Lynn is NJVC vice president and general manager, cyber security. She oversees all aspects of the company’s cyber security business unit, including the creation of technically advanced and state-of-the-art cyber innovations, solutions and strategies to develop new business and financial performance. In her online interview, she discusses how her team is bringing innovation to the marketplace everyday.

Before undertaking this new role in the company, Ms. DeCourcey was Deputy Director, Cyber Security, for one of the company’s Intelligence Community customers. She led the effort to support the most successful Defense Information Systems Agency Command Cyber Readiness Inspection in the history of that particular contract. Under her leadership, Ms. DeCourcey’s team also developed the NJVC “Cyber Dashboard”—a “single-view” threat and vulnerability situational awareness console. The Cyber Dashboard recently was honored as the winner of the 2011 (ISC)² Government Information Security Leadership Awards Team Award.

The NJVC Cyber Dashboard facilitates situational awareness for decision makers to defend against the proliferation and increasing sophistication of cyber threats by visualizing, analyzing and generating reports from the aggregated and correlated data feeds from strategically placed sensors.

 

This dashboard is:

• Customizable
• Enterprise capable
• Modified for each stakeholder
• User focused

Each active device or data feed is interrogated for input, and proceeds to:

• Aggregate data for display
• Manage background algorithms
• Provide automated updates

ExecutiveBiz.com is dedicated to covering the government contracting sector from the perspective of the executive. Our writers and researchers follow the political and business trends associated with contracting to find those who matter most to those who make decisions.

 

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2012)