HealthCare.gov’s Cloud Computer System Cost Five Times as Much as Expected

The cloud computing contract for the federal
government’s Obamacare exchange came in a lot higher than
originally planned,
reports NextGov:

The government’s contract with Terremark, Verizon’s cloud
division, had
already quadrupled from $11 million when it was first
awarded in 2011 to $46 million at the time of HealthCare.gov’s
disastrous launch in October 2013. That included a $9 million
adjustment just
days before launch when testing revealed the cloud could
only support 10,000 concurrent HealthCare.gov users rather than the
expected 50,000.

CMS ordered an additional $15.2 worth of cloud services from
Terramark between the launch date, when most users were unable to
access key portions of the site, and Nov. 30, when officials
declared the site was performing at an acceptable level, according
to a justification
for other than full and open competition document posted
on Thursday.

That contract adjustment paid for added cloud storage plus
firewall upgrades, additional software and various other
services.

Once again, it suggests that the federal government didn’t know
what they were getting into when the exchanges launched last
October. Asked about the increased cost, a federal health official
tells NextGov that “if the additional services were not added
urgently, the exchanges would not function as designed and citizens
would continue to have issues using the marketplace.” In other
words, the original plan had been for a system that wouldn’t
work.