Government IT buyers will be keen to hear from cloud brokers how their contract might be structured, including the service-level agreements with the cloud-serve provider, a thorny issue for government cloud projects. GSA is also looking to hear creative ideas about how to achieve some of the flexibility of the pay-as-you pricing model while still hewing to the budget-planning mandates laid down by the CFO.

Many CIOs have also expressed concern about software licenses. Marcelo Olascoaga, a program executive with GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, explained that agencies have been using database applications from providers like Oracle, Sybase and MySQL for years, and while they are in no hurry to ditch the product, they would love to shed the burden of maintaining the licenses.

"We don't want to manage those licenses anymore," Olascoaga said. "We do want to use the database capabilities, but as a service. So if you as an integrator or even a cloud provider can work with developers and manufacturers of software and get us out of the licensing issue, that would be a great service to us."

Other key drivers for the government's ongoing drive to the cloud include interoperability and portability. That means that would-be cloud brokerage providers will have to address issues of vendor lock-in, while also describing how their services could be replicated across other agencies.

"The government's moving to the cloud. We don't want each agency to move to the cloud individually, experience the same problems, and have to develop a 'lessons learned' document," Kazcmarczk said. "We want to move to the cloud as a government and really take full advantage of our collective buying power."