Criterion takes in $85M Agriculture IT services order

Criterion Systems has won a potential five-year, $85 million task order to help the Agriculture Department operate its national IT center.

USDA awarded the order to Vienna, Va.-based Criterion through the General Services Administration’s Alliant Small Business contract vehicle. Criterion started the work on Jan. 1 and the order includes one base year with four one-year options.

The department sought cloud-based hosting services and help to executive USDA’s risk management framework for IT security, compliance and governance functions.

USDA’s national IT center operates three enterprise data centers that are used by 35 other federal organizations to host business applications in a cloud environment.

Within USDA, Criterion’s other customers include the U.S. Forest Service and Food and Nutrition Services agencies for application development work.