DLT Solutions Ups Its Cloud Game With New Procurement Tool For Government Clients

Federal government integrator DLT Solutions expanded its cloud portfolio on Wednesday with the launch of DLT Cloud Navigator, a new solution designed to help public sector customers develop strategies and procure products and services.

Rick Marcotte, president and CEO of DLT, said that after several years of educating government clients about cloud computing's potential, the solution provider is taking the next step by helping government agencies and departments implement cloud strategies and services.

"The goal with DLT Cloud Navigator isn't to load up a bunch of people inside federal agencies," Marcotte said. "The goal is to help them develop a practical cloud strategy."

Related: DLT Solutions Launches Private Cloud Platform Powered By Amazon, Red Hat

DLT's Cloud Navigator features several products and services from top vendors such as Oracle, Red Hat, Amazon and other DLT partners, as well as procurement support for various federal government contract vehicles. The Cloud Navigator also includes a new managed services offering, architectural support, and pay-as-you-go billing.

Cloud Navigator follows DLT's April launch of CODEvolved, a private platform-as-a-service offering that combines Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise software with Amazon Web Services and is designed to give clients a cloud environment for application development, testing, and hosting.

Marcotte said that despite the recent decline in federal government IT spending, cloud demand is growing. In fact, he said, cloud spending in the federal government will outpace overall IT spending in the space over the next four to five years as agencies and department look to lower costs.

"The primary motivation for cloud is financially driven," Marcotte said. "Federal agencies will do anything to avoid capex hits."

David Blankenhorn, chief cloud technologist at DLT Solutions, said Cloud Navigator is a natural maturation of the solution provider's strategy.

"We started hearing cloud questions in the federal government market in 2010," Blankenhorn told CRN. "DLT invested in cloud early on, and it was originally a knowledge practice to help federal clients understand cloud. It's been interesting watching the conversation change over the last three to four years. It's gone from 'What is cloud?' to 'Is it secure?' to 'How do I procure it?'."

Blankenhorn said federal government clients, which make up the majority of DLT's annual revenue, are still taking a cautious approach to rolling out cloud solutions by starting with smaller projects such as hosted email or specific cloud apps rather than full-blown cloud data center conversions.

"We see more of a crawl-walk-run approach with infrastructure in the federal government," he said. "But the interest in growing."