Alliant Is The Place To Go!  

By Jeff Erlichman

Alliant is a 10-year MA/IDIQ GWAC contract with a base period of five years, one five-year option and a contract ceiling of $50 billion.

Veterans Affairs is examining how to upgrade its CVA Healthcare Claims Processing System.

The Air Force wants to install its 2GLAN (Second Generation Local Area Network) wireless networks at 41 AFBs with some expansion services for 26 others.

DHS ICE is working on new options for its Security Operations Center support services and Disaster Recovery services.

DOD is looking to fulfill its Combat Information Transport System Block 30 Spiral 2 Systems requirement and deliver E-products for the American Forces Press Service.

TSA needs wireless communications services and equipment.

These needs traverse the IT and networking services gamut. Those needing them are from all corners of government but all can be served by one new governmentwide acquisition contract vehicle – GSA Alliant.

Alliant is a 10-year MA/IDIQ contract with a base period of five years, one five-year option and a contract ceiling of $50 billion.

Transforming Government

During the next decade analog government is continuing its rapid transformation to a digital government. As IT and network infrastructures converge and are modernized, government is moving to new ways to deliver more IT services to more customers worldwide.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) capabilities are expanding exponentially as a result of advances in server, desktop and storage virtualization technologies and embracing cloud computing principles.

This movement is not just talk; it is backed up with dollars. The Obama Administration’s FY2010 budget declares on the topic of Optimizing Common Services and Solutions/Cloud-Computing Platform:

“The Federal technology environment requires a fundamental examination of investments in technology infrastructure. The Infrastructure Modernization Program will be taking on new challenges and responsibilities.”

That’s a tall order. But at your side every step of the way during the next decade is GSA’s Alliant (and Alliant Small Business) GWAC.

The Value Proposition

The value proposition for Alliant is simple GSA’s Jim Ghiloni told 1105 Government Information Group Custom Media during a recent interview.

“Alliant is the most comprehensive and flexible IT contract in the federal IT marketplace. It allows for a total solution for large complex IT requirements, including those aspects of the IT solution that aren’t IT in and of themselves, but integral and necessary to the solution – those ancillary services needed.”

Ghiloni stressed Alliant provides access to 59 outstanding industry partners. “Using a GWAC like Alliant offers access to streamlined acquisition procedures. You can get awards done quickly and efficiently and at the same time adhere to all federal acquisition regulations.”

Alliant is also geared to accommodating stimulus money said Ghiloni. “We anticipate that Alliant will be used for stimulus IT projects. Given that the pressure for stimulus is to spend the money in a transparent way, but do it relatively quickly – in as a few as 120 days for fairly substantial sums – Alliant is an outstanding solution for that kind of work.”

Ghiloni said all awardees have top secret facility clearances and can provide best value IT solutions to federal agencies globally, while strengthening opportunities in federal contracting for small businesses.

“The scope of Alliant encompasses all components of an integrated IT solution, including new technologies that may emerge during the life cycle of the contract,” said Ghiloni. “This GWAC provides IT solutions through performance of a broad range of services which may include the integration of various technologies critical to the services being acquired.”

Scope Aligned to the FEA and DoDEA

John Johnson, recently retired ITS Assistant Commissioner led the Alliant program effort to provide the most comprehensive and flexible IT contracts possible.

“When we designed Alliant we did that design based on what we saw in the Federal Enterprise Architecture framework and the DoD Enterprise Architecture environment,” Johnson told 1105 Government Information Group Custom Media.

“We wanted people to be able to readily align their requirements to aspects of the Enterprise Architecture. So we think that Alliant will certainly make it easier for our customers to articulate their needs.”

According to GSA, the FEA alignment will facilitate agencies’ efforts to migrate toward a more unified governmentwide IT infrastructure, by standardizing technologies and systems that support mission needs.

By aligning with the FEA, the Alliant contracts use a common language to define IT investments; evolve over time as technology develops and expands; adhere to a modeled approach (eliminating the need to “list everything possible”); assist customers in responding to OMB mandates for tracking and reporting IT investments; and promote sharing, consolidation, and reuse of business processes and systems.

Transparency – The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act

One of the concerns of this Administration is transparency and oversight. “As an Executive Agent for OMB, we are gathering a lot of information on the use of our contracts and we are reporting it to OMB; things like competition, fair opportunity and small business utilization,” explained Ghiloni.

“To address stimulus funding, we will be able to identify those Task Orders related to stimulus spending and be able to run reports on that and feed that data into the systems that the Administration is procuring to track and make that data available to the public.”

Because Alliant has very stringent contract reporting requirements, agencies using ARRA money will get that visibility through the normal reporting process under Alliant. This is a unique feature in the marketplace right now, because everyone else is wrestling with how to do that.

Get Your DPA – Use Alliant

Alliant is for services, not for commodities said Ghiloni. “That’s where Schedule 70 fits in. Also if an agency is not sure whether their requirement can be met under Alliant they can send their SOW to GSA and we will do a review of whether it is in scope.”

Further Ghiloni said there are no functional categories or areas. There are no tiers. “Solutions spread across the gamut. Functional areas sometimes restrict a solution and put focus on one area. We want to spread across the entire gamut of IT. On Alliant, you don’t have to decide whether it’s Functional Area A or B.”

In order to use Alliant federal contracting officers (COs) must receive training on the use of the Alliant contract and be granted a written delegation of procurement authority from the GWAC program office.

“Training is offered at no cost through onsite training conferences and events, conference calls, a web or video conference or a self-paced, online course through the GSA Center for Acquisition Excellence,” added Ghiloni.

When all is said and done, “you get the same wide variety of solutions we saw on ANSWER and Millennia (both will be replaced by Alliant when they expire in 2010) from a couple of million to a couple of hundred million dollars.”  Plus Alliant is everything IT.

“So, new government IT service solutions such as virtualization of any type and cloud computing are in the scope of Alliant. All concerns for security can be addressed in an Alliant Task Order.”

"Clearly", Ghiloni exclaimed, “Alliant is the place to go.”