Air Force starts the bidding for $300M virtualization contract

The Air Force Research Laboratory is now ready for industry to start working on and turning in their proposals for a $300 million contract to provide IT products for virtualization and remote access functions.

Bids for the five-year program being dubbed EVEREST are due by Feb. 5 and the award will go to a single company. The deadline to submit questions is Jan. 16, the lab said in a Tuesday Sam.gov notice.

The Engineering for Virtualized Enterprise and Remote Access Technology contract will cover software research and development, integration, deployment, testing, integration, sustainment and training of systems for virtual desktop and mobile platforms.

AFRL's goal for the program is to further stand up a multi-level access environment that helps users securely access data from multiple domains through a single device, while also protecting those domains from unauthorized access and cyber attacks.

Technologies to be developed under EVEREST will also have some degree of availability across the entire Defense Department to include combatant commands, federal law enforcement agencies, the intelligence community and Homeland Security Department.