CMS awards EDS $41 million data center contract

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awarded EDS Corp. a $41 million task order to provide Web-hosting services to support all of CMS' outward-facing Web sites.This is the second task order issued to EDS under the CMS $1.9 billion contract, the hub of the CMS IT infrastructure modernization for the next decade.EDS is one of three companies competing for task orders under the 10-year data center contract to consolidate operations at the agency of the Health and Human Services Department and which are performed at more than 20 different facilities.IBM Corp. and Companion Data Services LLC, a subsidiary of BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, are the other vendors.Under the new task order, EDS said it will support the and Web sites, the agency's primary vehicles for communicating with U.S. citizens. EDS will also support other CMS Web-based mid-tier legacy applications as well as disaster recovery and testing operations for these applications.The new task order, awarded following a competition between the three EDC vendors, calls for a six-month transition period followed by seven one-year options. EDS Agility Alliance partners Cisco, EMC, Sun Microsystems and Dell will provide key components.Under the first task order awarded in April and valued at up to $29 million, EDS is establishing the first operational Enterprise Data Center to process fee-for-service Medicare claims.