DISA unveils $11B IT 'Enclave' services solicitation

The Defense Information Systems Agency has put a much-anticipated potential $11.2 billion contract for broad IT and systems integration services out for industry to compete for.

Bids for the Defense Enclave Services contract are due Feb. 8, 2021 as DISA intends to pick one winner sometime in the fourth quarter of 2021, the agency said Tuesday in a Beta.Sam.Gov notice.

Work will take place over a four-year base period and three two-year option periods that would achieve the full ceiling amount.

Defense Enclave Services is an ambitious effort by DISA to consolidate several IT support contracts across so-called “Fourth Estate” agencies outside the service branches into one vehicle. The broad idea behind DES is to put all 22 of those agencies on a single network named DoDNet, which DISA will operate for 400,000 users across 80 locations.

One item to call out is how DISA plans to incorporate the Pentagon’s new CMMC cybersecurity standards for contractors into this procurement. Instead of an evaluation criteria, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification is now a requirement in the statement of objectives.

The agency has set a small business participation requirement of 25% of the total ceiling value.

DISA’s single-award strategy for this contract is like that of how the Pentagon has attempted to undertake its two major commercial cloud buys, the still-under-protest JEDI infrastructure contract and DEOS back-office tools package now being rolled out.

This article originally appeared in Washington Technology, a Defense Systems partner site.