Interior Department launches cloud solicitation with up to $1B ceiling

The U.S. Department of the Interior has issued final details of a single-source cloud procurement that could be worth up to $1 billion.

In a solicitation document published on SAM.gov, the agency set out requirements for an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract, which is known as Cloud Hosting Service III (CHS III).

It comes after the U.S. Geological Survey in May issued a wide-ranging draft solicitation. Through the procurement, the Department of the Interior is seeking to obtain virtual private center cloud services that will support cloud and managed service requirements.

Interior hopes to support its core priorities of migrating technology services to the cloud and consolidating its data centers. The contract will have five-year base and three two-year options to extend. It has a minimum value of $10 million and a ceiling of $1 billion.

Throughout the proposed solicitation, the department has stressed the importance of moving agencies across Interior to a more standard, shared services IT experience away from local data centers while also providing flexibility for each of those agencies’ distinct IT needs and environments, as directed in the 2019 federal Cloud Smart policy.

This new CHS III acquisition comes as Interior’s Foundation Cloud Hosting Services contract, awarded to a group of 10 contractors in 2013 with a total ceiling of $10 billion, is set to expire next year. That contract saw a lengthy bid protest process led by losing bidder Centurylink.

At the same time, the General Services Administration is working on a governmentwide cloud blanket purchase agreement called Ascend as a part of the agency’s larger effort to develop a “Cloud Marketplace” for the federal government. With the eventual BPA, GSA wants to “provide a streamlined method for government agencies to acquire and implement secure, integrated commercial cloud service solutions, including cloud focused labor services.”