DISA preps to kick off $11.7B IT contract bidding

Today (Sept. 15) was the last day to comment on the draft solicitation for a potential $11.7 billion Defense Information Systems Agency contract to consolidate a variety of IT services for agencies outside the service branches.

A final solicitation for the Defense Enclave Services contract is expected to be released by the end of September. DISA expects to release the answers to the submitted questions in conjunction with the final requests for proposals.

The draft RFP included a number attachments including a past performance question that covers areas such as quality of product or service, cost control, schedule, management, compliance and customer satisfaction.

Bidders will score their past performance.

Defense Enclave Services is an ambitious undertaking by DISA to consolidate a large number of IT support contracts into one vehicle that will have a single winner. That strategy has parallels to the JEDI cloud infrastructure contract and the DEOS program for cloud-based email and collaboration tools.

The new DES contract covers network access, application and hosting, message and directory services, end-user support, storage, video, IT services management and cybersecurity. DES is part of DISA’s effort to move all defense agencies outside of the service branches to a single network named DoDNET that DISA will operate.

DES is technically a new effort but is consolidating a large number of existing contracts. Many of those are held by small businesses that likely will not be able to bid on DES as a prime. But DISA is designing the contract to include a significant small business requirement.

In all, 22 defense agencies will move to DoDNET. These agencies have 400,000 users at more than 800 locations.

DISA has been posting information on the contract at Beta.Sam.Gov using the Notice ID of 621913271.