The Department of the Treasury released its cloud acquisition roadmap Sept. 15, a plan that includes an enterprisewide cloud it is looking to award in fiscal year 2022.
The department wrote that it needs an enterprise cloud in part because components across Treasury are moving forward with their own cloud solution, an approach it wrote wasn’t cost-effective. Treasury wrote that its “desire” is to “minimize the number of cloud acquisitions across Treasury by sizing them for the enterprise.”
“This scattered approach, while offering varying degrees of agility for individual customers, ignores opportunities for cost reduction through service deduplication and consolidated procurement actions,” Treasury wrote.
It estimated the value of the its full and open competition contract to be at least $1 billion, with repricing in year three for years five through eight.
The goal of the contract is to “develop an enterprise acquisition that provides the full suite of products, services and professional labor support for cloud solutions across multiple [cloud service providers].”
The department wrote that it wants its enterprise cloud to include the full suite of AWS, Microsoft, Google and Oracle cloud services, in addition to the ability to add a new CSP to the platform. A hybrid, multicloud environment will allow the different Treasury components to have “maximum flexibility in meeting their requirements.” Treasury also wrote that it has seen a 30 percent increase in cloud use throughout the department year-over-year.
The contract, dubbed T-Cloud, won’t be awarded for a few years. Treasury’s request for information will be released in fiscal 2020, followed by the statement of objectives and request for comment in fiscal 2021. Treasury is currently doing market research and drafting the RFI.
Treasury’s shared-service approach to the contract was influenced by the drawn-out timeline of cloud solution procurements. With the technology quickly evolving in such a rapidly changing space, long delays can minimize any technological benefits.
“The acquisition cycle time for IT and cloud infrastructure services are lengthy processes and occasionally negate many of the just-in-time benefits associated with cloud services,” Treasury wrote. “As such, Treasury will pursue a shared-service cloud infrastructure model in order to capture Treasury-wide efficiencies in access, contracting and security.”
It also plans to procure several “bridge contracts” for cloud services. The document states that these contracts will be three to four years long and will be recompetes of Microsoft and Amazon reseller contracts. The contracts are meant to “ensure continuity of operations” over the next few years.
Andrew Eversden covers all things defense technology for C4ISRNET. He previously reported on federal IT and cybersecurity for Federal Times and Fifth Domain, and worked as a congressional reporting fellow for the Texas Tribune. He was also a Washington intern for the Durango Herald. Andrew is a graduate of American University.
