While Washington has its eyes set on 2017, many of last year's developments on contract vehicles and General Services Administration services will likely play a large role in acquisition.
Here's a look at the acquisition vehicles and services to watch this year:
OASIS Pool 2 On Ramp
The small business on-ramp for GSA's professional services contract vehicle currently has request-for-proposal that will close on Jan. 10.
All eyes will be on the inevitable pool of industry partners that GSA will pull from to provide Pool 2 contract services, which include accounting, tax preparation and payroll services, in addition to research and development contracts in the social sciences and humanities.
FedRAMP 2.0
After a tumultuous relationship between industry and the government's third-party cloud systems security certification platform, the General Services Administration will continue to improve upon its Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program in 2017.
GSA spent much of 2016 developing accelerated accreditation processes to help certify cloud service providers faster than the previous incarnations of FedRAMP, which were slow to develop and placed a drag on agency cloud computing adoption.
How those developments play out will be watched as IT modernization efforts push agencies closer to the cloud.
The Technology Transformation Service
The technology acquisition service was meant to revolutionize the way GSA brings innovation to the federal government — incorporating the gains of 18F and the Presidential Innovation Fellows.
But rumors are buzzing that the Trump administration may seek to fold a number of the Obama-era innovation components, which if true, would signal peril for the service.
Depending on Trump’s pick for GSA administrator, the fate of TTS will be a prominent question mark for 2017.
HACS
GSA rolled out four new Special Item Numbers to cover Highly Adaptive Cybersecurity Services on Oct. 1, providing agencies a new way to procure cybersecurity tools through indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) multiple award contracts.
Given its importance to the Cybersecurity National Action Plan, HACS’s growth and the tools it offers will be closely watched over the next year.
DHS IT spending
One area where information technology spending is expected to increase in 2017 is at the Department of Homeland Security.
IT modernization combined with a stronger focus on cybersecurity is projected to increase spending this year, with on-book IT representing 16 percent of the agency’s discretionary budget, according to the Professional Service Council’s 2016 Vision Forecast.
DHS’s wide menagerie of components and missions means that it will make cyber and innovation a priority in 2017.
