Navy moves forward with $14.5B NGEN program

The Navy has released a pair of sources sought notices for its huge Next Generation Enterprise Network, the replacement for the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet.

One request for information focuses on Navy’s data centers. The second RFI concentrates on software as a service.

Cost savings is an overriding theme in the RFIs with multiple references by the Navy to lowering total cost of ownership of its IT and to reducing its non-tactical IT budget by 25 percent.

NGEN is expected to be a group of contracts that will replace the single-award NMCI held by Hewlett-Packard Co. Some of the new contracts will be multiple-award; some will be single awards. The group of contracts are expected to have a value of $14.5 billion. NMCI has been worth about $10.7 billion so far, according to the market research firm Deltek Input.

In the software as a service RFI, the Navy says it is planning to consolidate or retire many legacy software applications. Those that remain and new applications will need to operate in the cloud.

In the data center RFI, the Navy says it has 80 data centers that need modernization. "Many of them implement custom point-to-point solutions for each system, with outmoded service delivery models,” the service said in the RFI. “Given today's fiscally constrained environment and under the department’s current consolidation and efficiency guidance, this continued approach is neither desired nor sustainable.”

Responses to the RFIs are due by Aug. 29.