Army to Merge $100 Million Regional Cyber Operations Contracts
By Chris Cornillie
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U.S. Army’s cyber warfare division is considering a plan to consolidate its five regional cybersecurity centers under a single contract, according to a request for information released in early November. The new contract could be valued at $100 million or more, based on the size of the incumbent contracts.
Army Cyber Command, or ARCYBER, oversees five regional cyber centers (RCCs) around the globe, each tasked with managing the Defense Department’s unclassified NIPRNet and classified SIPRNet networks, as well as detecting, disrupting, and deterring enemy cyber operations.
The Army currently outsources management of the RCCs to five separate contractors using five separate contracts or task orders:
- Continental U.S. – Directviz Solutions LLC ($50.3 million)
- Europe – Northrop Grumman Corp. ($24.4 million)
- Pacific – Laulima Government Solutions LLC ($16.5 million)
- Southwest Asia – Agile Defense Inc. ($4.5 million)
- Korea – RS3 Joint Venture LLC ($6.5 million)
Centralizing the RCCs under a single contract would help ARCYBER standardize its operations, offer common disaster recovery and continuity of operations services, and provide a more complete picture of what and whom is on the Defense Department’s networks, according to an attached document.
“This consolidated contract should demonstrate unique solutions to enhance the speed at which the Army globally responds to cyberspace incidents while improving methods to secure the environment preventing the incidents in the first place,” according to the document.
The Army is considering migrating the contracts to Information Technology Enterprise Solutions – 3 Services (ITES-3S), a multiple-award task order contract typically selected for complex IT services, such as cyber operations or cloud computing. ITES-3S, which was awarded in September 2018, has spots for 54 large businesses and 82 small businesses. To date, ITES-3S has generated $273 million in obligations. Of the five incumbent vendors, only three – Directviz Solutions, Northrop Grumman, and Agile Defense – hold spots on ITES-3S.
Vendors must be able to account for the Pentagon’s network and systems architecture, including the Joint Regional Security Stacks, and capable of supporting a range of products from cybersecurity vendors.
Interested vendors have until Dec. 7 to respond to the RFI and questionnaire.
To contact the analyst on this story: Chris Cornillie in Washington at ccornillie@bgov.com
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Snyder at dsnyder@bgov.com
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