LS3, Aquilent team up for VA portal test

The Veterans Affairs Department has awarded LS3, in close partnership with Aquilent, a $2.9 million contract to design and develop the OneVA Portal Pilot. The vendors said today they initially will create a unified, veteran-focused information architecture and site design, identity management, and single sign-on to existing VA systems.

The initial test aims to prove technical and content concepts for future production and implementation in a live portal.

The award is a task order under the General Services Administration with a 12-month performance period.

LS3 and Aquilent plan to create a OneVA presentation, which is integrated with existing VA portals such as My HealtheVet and the Veterans Information Portal, single sign-on and other VA web sites. The vendors intend to build a portal framework, integrate targeted Web components like portals and self-service applications, collect and incorporate feedback, and gather additional requirements to improve the final OneVA portal.

The portal will be the access point for veterans coming into VA, said Joe Bond, head of VA's program executive office for resource management.

"The contractors will develop a portal pilot to show we can create it and what it can do," he said. "We intend to go from a pilot in 2008 to 2009 and make more of a beta production environment. It will be limited, but in use full time by some veterans."

"Then in 2010, we hope to have a full production portal environment," Bond said.

Bond said the effort is heading in the same direction as VA's Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 imitative by using similar identity vetting and authentication processes.

The OneVA Portal Pilot project will build on prior work by VA, LS3 and Aquilent, such as the OneVA Information Architecture and Enterprise Content Management Strategic Transformation Roadmap. The project will also draw on Aquilent's experience as the core development contractor for the My HealtheVet program and LS3's subject matter expertise and experience implementing large scale enterprise identity, access management and public key infrastructure applicatioins.