NOAA sketches out blueprint for multi-cloud contract

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has taken step number one in its plan to acquire commercial cloud computing resources that would be available at all of the agency’s organizational levels.

In a sources sought notice posted Wednesday, NOAA is emphasizing its desire for a multi-vendor cloud solution that “must be a direct contract with” the providers of said infrastructure.

NOAA plans to go down the path of a multiple-award contract in order to make that happen. The NOAA Cloud Acquisition is being called NCloud.

The agency eyes cloud-centric capabilities as further enabling its scientific research and data collaboration efforts that have diverse and complex computational needs, such as higher data center and network capacity.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, higher network security and more extensive interconnectivity are also among NOAA’s priorities for this planned contract.

Responses to the request for information are due to NOAA by 10 a.m. Eastern time on Oct. 30.