DISA launches market research for combatant command migration
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By
Nick Wakeman
The Defense Information Systems Agency's sources sought notice addresses a protest by General Dynamics IT without naming the company nor the protest.
The Defense Information Systems Agency has kicked off the market research portion of the corrective action it took in response to General Dynamics IT's protest against DISA's plan to expand the $11 billion Enclave contract.
In a sources sought notice posted Monday, DISA addresses the market research shortcomings GDIT tagged in its protest of the agency’s plan to add combatant commands to the Enclave IT environment.
DISA awarded Leidos the contract in 2022 to migrate administrative and support agencies to the DODNet. The expansion would have added the commands as well.
Inadequate market research was one of several complaints GDIT raised in its protest. DISA's corrective action means it will conduct new market research, make a new acquisition approach decision and create a new acquisition plan.
While Monday’s notice makes no mention of the corrective action or GDIT's protest, the notice effectively implements the market research portion and acquisition planning of the corrective action.
Instead of the protest, DISA cites a May 22 memo from Pentagon Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davies ordering DISA to consolidate the combatant commands into single network as the reason for conducting the market research.
DISA also used the May 22 memo to justify expanding the Enclave contract when it posted the justification document in June.
The new sources sought notice says that DISA wants to consolidate the 11 combatant commands (with 231,000 users at 200 global sites) onto DODNet. DISA wants a single contract for all migration activities.
DISA's goal is to complete the migration by the end of the government's fiscal year 2028.
The winning contractor needs to demonstrate several capabilities such as identity and access management, zero trust architecture, infrastructure as code, and established migration methodologies.
Having a secret level facility security clearance is another minimum requirement.
DISA expects to award a contract within 220 days of releasing the final solicitation.
Responses to the sources sought notice are due Aug. 4.