RFP issued for Defense's $13b Encore II procurement

The Defense Department has issued a request for proposals to convert legacy systems to the Net-Centric Enterprise Services environment.

The RFP for Encore II Information Technology Solutions, a 10-year, $13 billion program, was released yesterday.

The multiple indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts will cover hardware, software, licenses and services for DOD and other government agencies.

"Many costly redundancies and duplications of functionality exist within the current legacy environment, and recent DOD mobilizations have proven that the current legacy environment is inadequate to meet the evolving mission needs of the user," according to the RFP.

The IT buying vehicle is envisioned to migrate Defense agencies and services to an integrated environment that is consistent with the Joint Vision 2020 concept.

The Net-Centric Enterprise Services program will use Web services so Defense agencies can tap nine core functions: management, messaging, discovery, mediation, collaboration, user help, security, storage and application.

"Encore II will be able to provide service/agency engineering and other support as they transition legacy systems to use ? DOD's Net-Centric Enterprise Services program," the RFP states. "Encore II will support a broad array of services that will allow implementation of both the NCES enterprise capabilities and Community of Interest capabilities across the enterprise."

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

The Encore II contracts would expand the capabilities of DISA's Defense Enterprise Information Services I and II contracts, as well as earlier Encore contracts.

Dawn S. Onley is a staff writer for Washington Technology's sister publication, Government Computer News.