DISA drafts solicitation for $10b buying vehicle

The Defense Information Systems Agency has issued a draft request for proposals for a sweeping IT buying vehicle that will help convert legacy systems to the Network Centric Enterprise Services program.

DISA will accept comments on the draft RFP for the Encore IT Solutions II until Jan. 21.

The agency plans to award multiple contracts for the 10-year, $10 billion program. The winning vendors will compete to sell hardware, software, services and other products to the Defense Department and other government agencies.

The systems will have to support command and control, intelligence, mission support and elements of the Global Information Grid.

As DISA prepares to test and roll out capabilities of its Network Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) program, the Encore II contracts will provide lifecycle support, DISA officials said. The agency will also use the contracts for tweaking the NCES architecture.

NCES will use Web services so Defense agencies can tap nine core functions: management, messaging, discovery, mediation, collaboration, user help, security, storage and application.

"DOD is transitioning from an unintegrated collection of stovepipe systems and architectures to an integrated and interoperable environment," the draft RFP said. "Many costly redundancies and duplications of functionality exist within the current legacy environment."

The Encore II contracts represent an ongoing expansion of DISA's Defense Enterprise Information Services I and II contracts, and earlier Encore contracts.