PPC expands big data work with $17.3M NARA win

Project Performance Co. is expanding its big data work at the National Archives and Records Administration with a new $17.3 million contract to support how the agency classifies and catalogs NARA records.

Project Performance Co. is expanding its big data work at the National Archives and Records Administration with a new $17.3 million contract to support how the agency classifies and catalogs NARA records.

PPC built and maintained the Description and Authority Service (DAS) under a contract it won in 2009. The new contract continues that work and adds support for the National Archive Catalog.

The DAS system feeds into the archive catalog to provide public access to NARA records through its website. The combined DAS and NAC systems will also let other systems and agencies provide direct access to record data in machine readable forms through an API the company built, according to a PPC news release.

Other API initiatives will be designated by NARA and others, the company said.

“The DAS and NAC systems are big data applications with rapid growth expected to be measured in Petabytes per years,” said PPC president and CEO Paul Strasser.

NARA is working with other federal agencies to preserve and provide ready access to historical records of federal government.

Some of the work PPC will provide includes IT planning and infrastructure optimization, balanced scorecard operations, network support, software license services and software maintenance and upgrades.