Google's package of cloud-computing applications is the first to be certified by the General Services Administration as meeting federal cybersecurity standards, the company announced Monday.

Google Apps — which includes well-known programs such as Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar — was approved by GSA chief information officer Casey Coleman last week under the 2002 Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA).

The certification only covers the use of Google Apps within GSA, but Google officials believe it gives the company a leg up in the race to move federal networks at other agencies into the cloud.

"We see this really as a green light for agencies to move forward with cloud computing," David Mihalchik, head of business development for Google's federal team, said Tuesday in an interview. "Given the leadership role GSA plays … we fully expect that other agencies will leverage this certification."

GSA is heading up the Obama administration's cloud-computing initiative, and last month it asked contractors for proposals to move GSA's e-mail systems and other applications into the cloud.

Google's certification is "something other agencies could look to, but not that they could use," GSA spokeswoman Sahar Wali said. Specifically, other agencies could adopt the language used in GSA's certification of Google, but they would still have to conduct their own negotiations with the company and prepare their own certification documents, Wali said.

Other companies, including Google rival Microsoft, have requested FISMA certification from GSA and are still going through the process.

This fall, GSA plans to set up a program called Fedramp that will speed adoption of cloud computing by allowing agencies to piggyback on each other's cloud-related FISMA certifications. Existing certifications would give companies a head start once Fedramp is up and running.

The administration advocates cloud computing as a way to save money, improve performance and free up resources. Employees at agencies that move to a solution such as Google Apps would access their e-mail, calendars, address books and files such as spreadsheets and presentations via the Internet, rather than an application loaded on their hard drives.

Security has been a primary concern for federal department heads and chief information officers as they mull the transition to the cloud. To help alleviate those fears, Google will store government customers' data in a system located in the continental United States and keep it separate from other Google customers' information.

"Most agencies we have worked with have found that Google Apps provides at least equivalent, if not better, security than they have today," Kripa Krishnan, technical program manager for Google Apps for Government, wrote in a blog post Monday.

Google Apps is already in use by more than a dozen federal agencies, but only for small projects that did not require FISMA certification, Mihalchik said.