Posted by David A. Utter

The General Services Administration, procurement office to the government, has awarded a 5-year contract to MySQL AB for placement in its listings for purchase by federal agencies.

Carahsoft Technology provides various IT solutions to government levels from federal down through local ones. A new GSA contract reported by eWeek makes it easier for government offices to order MySQL through Carahsoft.

The company lists MySQL and Red Hat as open source solutions it provides to government. In their PAGE about MySQL, Carahsoft noted how every continent has the database running somewhere on it, including Antarctica.

Carahsoft also produced a white paper about MySQL in August 2005. They cited four factors of interest to federal purchasers: greater interoperability, lock-in elimination, higher level of security, and lower total cost of ownership.

Further in the document, the company illustrated a cost breakdown of going with Oracle 8i as a database solution for an agency, citing IDC as the data source:

"Although few would propose that all government software should be open source, there is clearly an opportunity for its further adoption in government," Carahsoft said in its white paper.

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About the Author: David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.