Interior wants to put all its messages in one cloud

The Interior Department is looking for a cloud-based Enterprise eArchive System for capturing e-mail, social media, instant messaging and electronic documents. 

Interior intends to “procure an eArchive platform compliant with federal records capabilities necessary to capture all inbound and outbound e-mail, social media content such as instant messaging, electronic documents, and Web chat within a Federal Information Security Management Act-moderate cloud offering,” according to a pre-solicitation notice on FedBizOpps.gov. The system must also be compliant with the Defense Department’s 5015.2 Standard Version 3 certified records management platform.

The system will support the estimated 88,000 Interior employees and their associated e-mail accounts, as well as mobile devices where messaging and chat are passed directly through a secure Simple Mail Transfer Protocol gateway and/or journaling technology. The government will work with the vendor awarded the contract to redirect journaling to this solution.

Interior’s Acquisition Services Directorate, on behalf of the Office of the Chief Information Officer, is seeking to award a $25 million competitive firm fixed-price contract with a base period of two years and two three-year option periods. AQD will issue the request for proposal for the cloud-based eArchive system on or around March 26.

The single vendor platform technology should include archive, early case assessment, records management, case management, auditing, and auto-classification technologies, Interior officials said. The cloud provider should also be authorized by the manufacturer to perform certified training and associated technical support services on all software, infrastructure and products. Interior will only consider commercial products, and no existing custom or custom-built software will be considered, officials said.

The cloud provider should also be certified to operate a software-as-a-service community cloud that is compliant at the FISMA moderate security level. The cloud platform must also be certified by third-party assessor.

The forthcoming RFP will contain all requirements and instructions so qualified companies can submit electronic proposals to the contracting officer, Alan Rumney (Alan.Rumney@aqd.nbc.gov) and the contract specialist, Kimberly Tran (Kimberly.Tran@aqd.nbc.gov).