Small business takes aim at DISA’s Enclave expansion

A small business is challenging several of the Defense Information Systems Agency's reasons behind its expansion of the Defense Enclave Services contract, which covers IT and network requirements among the Defense Department's administrative agencies.

Competitive Range Solutions' claims include one that the agency sat on the requirement for three years and then claimed that only Leidos could help DISA meet deadlines for migrating the combatant commands to DODNet.

Competitive Range Solutions filed its protest against DISA's plan on Oct. 8.

In the protest obtained by Washington Technology, the company recounts a 2023 sources sought notice exploring the possibility of a multiple-award small business contract that would be a complement Leidos’ Enclave contract.

The service-disabled/veteran-owned small business holds the $400 million TRI-GSM contract for technology refresh work at DISA.

The small business claims TRI-GSM would help move users of the Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router Network, Secret Internet Protocol Router Network and Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System to a managed service model operated by DISA.

But before the due date for responses, DISA killed the sources sought notice and remained silent until earlier this year. DISA then added the combatant commands to the Enclave contract.

DISA made its first attempt to move the work to Enclave in June and that action was protested by General Dynamics IT. The agency retrenched and issued a pair of RFIs before it released a new justification document for adding Leidos' work to Enclave a second time.

The window for filing a protest is no longer opened and GDIT has not registered an challenge this time around.

Competitive Range Solutions’ protest argues DISA itself recognized in 2023 that migrating NIPRNet, SIPRNet and JWICS users was outside Enclave’s scope, which is why the agency explored a separate contract.

“The distinction between the 2023 attempt and the 2026 attempt is meaningful: in 2023 the Agency began conducting market research prior to making an award, while separately recognizing that the work was out of scope of [Enclave]; in 2026, the Agency began its market research after it had already improperly issued the initial J&A identifying the out of scope modification,” the company writes in its protest.

Competitive Range Solutions argues that DISA wanted Leidos from the beginning. Part of the protest asks for all communications between DISA and Leidos regarding the expansion of Enclave.

Competitive Range Solutions is also attacking DISA’s stance that only Leidos can do the work, particularly because the SDVOSB has automation scripts for moving systems to DODNet.

DISA argues that any other vendor would face a steep learning curve and about $15 million in duplicative costs, jeopardizing the Sept. 30, 2028 deadline set by the Pentagon's chief information officer set for migrating the combatant commands.

But Competitive Range Solutions argues that automation scripts are only needed for portions of the migration and DISA already holds unlimited rights to the scripts. Competitive Range Solutions quoted the Enclave solicitation as saying the contractor “shall deliver to the Government all databases, scripts, source code, configuration documentation.”

The protest calls DISA’s position on the automation scripts an “irrational finding.”

Competitive Range Solutions also argues that even if the endpoint migration goes with the Enclave contract, the hardware tech refresh and network migration could be split out. This work does not need the scripts.

The Enclave solicitation even says that tech refreshes would be procured “through competitive means,” according to the protest.

Competitive Range Solutions also claims that DISA has purposely excluded consideration of small businesses for this work.

Again, Competitive Range Solutions points back to the 2023 sources sought notice. DISA was looking into whether small businesses had the capabilities it was looking for, implying the agency was laying the groundwork for a "Rule of Two" determination.

But instead, Competitive Range Solutions argues that DISA never considered whether small businesses could do the work.

DISA’s justification says 23 of 24 companies that answered its sources sought fell short. Competitive Range Solutions says it submitted two responses and is not counted among them.

Competitive Range Solutions also argues that DISA has been down this road before, on the same contract.

In 2023, DISA tried to sole-source work that small business OSC Edge was performing for National Defense University onto Leidos’ Enclave contract. But NDU was not among the agencies Enclave covered.

OSC Edge protested and the Government Accountability Office signaled DISA's move was improper through an outcome-prediction alternative dispute resolution.

In a later decision on OSC Edge’s protest costs, GAO wrote that “Leidos’s status as the sole DES contract awardee was insufficient to demonstrate it was the only responsible source.”

Competitive Range Solutions says the OSC decision undercuts DISA’s main justification that Leidos has “incumbent expertise.” Competitive Range Solutions says that GAO rejected that argument in the OSC case.

The company also argues that the OSC case shows a pattern of DISA moving work out of small business' hands and onto the Enclave contract.

The justification document for adding the combatant commands “repeats those errors,” Competitive Range Solutions says in its protest.

It is important to note that the protest is just one side of the story. DISA has a month to respond.

Competitive Range Solutions filed its protest Oct. 8 and a GAO ruling is expected by Jan. 19.