A few weeks ago I explored how Amazon.com is establishing a presence in Washington, D.C., as it markets its cloud computing services to U.S. government agencies and the military. Now comes word that Amazon Web Services is holding a two-day training session in the nation's capital. Kevin Jackson of Dataline blogs about the invite-only course, attended by a variety IT services firms that do business with the federal government.

Data Center Knowledge, which noted the training session, writes that "AWS Federal appears to be building its government pitch around contractors who already have relationships with federal customers, but may not possess the infrastructure to provide scalability for large cloud applications."

Amazon initially targeted its cloud services at startups and is increasingly seeking to broaden that customer base. Federal and state governments represent a big potential opportunity, given their size and information-technology needs. The Obama administration has shown an interest in cloud computing, though governments in general have historically been slow to innovate with technology. Amazon also faces competition from Google, Salesforce.com, IBM and others for a piece of the emerging government cloud market.

I've asked Amazon for more information on the DC training.

[Flickr photo via paper or plastic?]

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