General Dynamics challenges rival's $2.7B cloud migration win

Earlier this month, Peraton landed a big fish by winning a potential $2.7 billion cloud migration services contract at the Homeland Security Department.

Now an unsuccessful bidder has filed a protest to no surprise. General Dynamics IT is arguing that the evaluation was unfair and that GDIT would have one if the evaluation was conducted properly.

The $2.7 billion Data Center and Cloud Optimization (DCCO) Support Services contract has a 10-year performance period if all options are exercised.

More protests are possible as GDIT and Peraton are just two of seven bidders. The former Perspecta submitted a proposal for the DCCO contract before that company was absorbed into Peraton in May.

DHS currently has two main data centers that house its IT and data assets: Data Center 1, a leased facility at the NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and Data Center 2 located in Virginia and schedule for retirement.

The agency's plan is to first migrate everything in Data Center 1 into a new hybrid cloud computing environment, then turn to Data Center 2 and do the same. The current contracts are held by GDIT for Data Center 1 and Peraton/Perspecta on Data Center 2.

DHS envisions that environment as including a data center, colocation sites and access to commercial and private cloud services. That is a direction other agencies are considering, which makes the DCCO competition one of the bigger opportunities to hit the market and the winner an advantage for future contracts like it.

GDIT filed its protest on Oct 12 and a decision is expected on Jan. 20.