AWS secures $2.6B DHS-wide cloud project
The Department of Homeland Security is taking the next step toward reaching its cloud aspirations by officially bringing the first vendor onboard its Cumulus project, according to contract documents published Friday.
The agency awarded nearly $2.6 billion to Amazon Web Services via a single-award indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract for its cloud offerings, including Infrastructure as a Service, training and marketplace solutions.
Cumulus was first introduced in January as part of procurement forecasting documents that outlined DHS’s plan to increase the efficiency, flexibility and effectiveness of its cloud purchases in the hopes of unlocking “significant discounts.” At the time, DHS anticipated potential contracts would surpass $100 million, which is the ceiling for estimates on the Acquisition Planning Forecast System platform.
The Cumulus project spans the cloud-based model of As a Service solutions, from SaaS to Database as a Service. The Cumulus project marks the first time cloud service providers have been tapped at an agencywide level, rather than by individual components.
DHS plans to bring on other notable cloud providers. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is expected to join next quarter, as is Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. The award amounts for those contracts have not yet been disclosed. DHS has also been tightlipped about its current spend on cloud services, redacting the total amount in a justification document published in April.
Each provider’s award will encompass a one-year base period and up to four option years.
The four cloud providers had to meet a lengthy minimum requirement list. The global hyperscalers needed to be able to support 1,000 firewall rules, run 100,000 virtual machines and provide hundreds of petabytes of storage, among other criteria.
“Established minimum requirements in this instance are not considered unduly restrictive, as they are based on the security and technical capabilities necessary to support the Cumulus scope in providing department-wide CSP services without compromising mission success, data integrity and mission and data security,” DHS said in contracting documents.
DHS expects to realize at least $142 million in savings with the centralized procurement strategy in its first year of execution, per the document.
The AWS contract was first reported by OrangeSlices.
