Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) has won a contract to take over as web hosting provider for HealthCare.gov in a move that will transition the federal health insurance marketplace to a new data center, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
Spencer E. Ante writes that HP Enterprise Services will take in $38 million for the work under the Department of Health and Human Services award and that efforts to migrate to a new data center are underway.
“(The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) has begun the necessary activities to transition the data center over to HP, ” an HHS official familiar with the matter was quoted as saying.
“We are working to ensure a smooth transition.” The federal healthcare exchange went live on Oct. 1.
In a separate report, CNBC on Wednesday quoted a CMS spokesman as saying the plan to switch had been in place since July.
“As we think about the overall performance and functionality of the site, redundancy is a critical part of our planning and we are working to ensure it in all aspects of the system, ” the spokesman told CNBC.
That preceded an award that HP won in September to provide “disaster recovery services” for the federal health insurance exchange, according to the Journal.
HP Enterprise Services was a bright spot in the fourth quarter of HP’s fiscal year, with sales increasing 2 percent year-over-over, and company shares rising in the after-hours trading after that announcement.
