DISA tweaks RFP for $17.5B contracting vehicle

The Defense Information Systems Agency has released a request for proposals for IT products and services that the Defense Department can buy under a contracting vehicle with a $17.5 billion ceiling.

Officials hope Encore III, as the vehicle is known, can vault the Pentagon into a new era of secure and interoperable IT use. The byword for that end-state is the Joint Information Environment, a DOD-wide effort to standardize and consolidate IT networks.

No fewer than 19 categories of IT products and services can be ordered under Encore III, including cloud services, enterprise IT policy and planning, and "computer-telephony integration."

The goal is to maximize the use of commercial products and allow agencies to link their legacy systems with new technology.

DOD "is transitioning from a collection of stovepipe systems and architectures to an integrated and interoperable environment," a performance statement reads. "Many costly redundancies and duplications of functionality exist within the current legacy environment...and recent DOD mobilizations have proven that the current legacy environment is inadequate to meet the evolving mission needs of the user."

Encore III's influence could reach beyond DOD because other federal agencies can use the vehicle where appropriate.

The RFP was first put out in early March, but multiple revisions were posted on March 23 and 25. One of those changes noted that DISA intends to extend the deadline for proposals from April 4 to April 18 -- a change that "will be memorialized by a future RFP Amendment." That amendment has not yet posted to FedBizOpps, however, so additional changes may still be in the offing.