DOD, civilian cloud office app contracts advance
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Following the Pentagon's lead with its $8.2 billion cloud Defense Enterprise Office Solutions contract for email and collaboration services, the Office of Management and Budget is working out a version for civilian agencies.
Following the Pentagon's lead with its $8.2 billion cloud Defense Enterprise Office Solutions contract for email and collaboration services, the Office of Management and Budget is working out a version of DEOS for civilian agencies.
Plans for Civilian Enterprise Office Solution have begun to surface publicly in the last few weeks, as DOD plans awards and task orders under its cloud effort this summer. Alan Thomas, commissioner of GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, said a Civilian Enterprise Office Solutions vehicle is still in the "early stages" of development. Like DEOS, CEOS will look to leverage similar cloud efficiencies for email and other applications for federal agencies.
Thomas said the idea came directly from plans for the DEOS, but it wouldn't be a "carbon copy." The CEOS name is working title, not necessarily an official one.
The DEOS blanket purchase agreement for multiple business software tools including email and chat is being run through GSA Schedule 70. Requests for information regarding capability sets two and three -- for business and assured IP voice and video functions -- are expected later this year or by early 2020, pending internal cost analyses, according to Kevin Tate, a management analyst for the Defense Department CIO's portfolio lead on enterprise capabilities and productivity services, who spoke on the sidelines of Defense Information Systems Agency's TechNet Cyber conference in Baltimore on May 13.
Business analysis decisions still need to be made as old analog infrastructure lingers, Karl Kurz, DISA’s chief engineer for the unified capabilities portfolio, said. Some of the distinctions between DEOS and the other two capability sets led to a “logical breakdown” across the commercial space.
Both Kurz and Tate indicated that DOD and DISA are taking their time in evaluating the technical and financial costs of IP voice and video solutions. However, like DEOS, moving to a reliable capability from aging legacy systems is urgent.
As Kurz said, “It doesn’t matter how much money you save, if someone calls 911 and the call doesn’t go through -- you’ve failed.”
This report is a combination of two articles first posted to FCW, a sibling site to GCN.