Homeland Security network solicitation planned

Homeland Security Department officials plan to release the department's solicitation for an enterprise data network by the end of the year.

The Homeland Security Data Network (HSDN) will handle all data for the department. Given the many missions within the department — including some that are not related to homeland security — there will be subdomains, but the aim is to have everyone working on the same infrastructure as quickly as possible, Steve Cooper, chief information officer at the department, said today. He was speaking at a breakfast sponsored by Input in Arlington, Va.

Officials from a department office released and then pulled back an early version of the solicitation, but since then "we've basically rewritten it as a statement of objectives and performance-based work," and the final solicitation will likely go out under the General Services Administration's Millennia governmentwide acquisition contract, Cooper said.

Officials hope to rely on commercial companies to develop and implement the network. DHS officials will require the network to be in place and functioning by December 2004, Cooper said.