The General Services Administration (GSA) is seeking industry feedback through a request for information (RFI) on a governmentwide cloud acquisition strategy and blanket purchase agreement (BPA).
GSA’s acquisition strategy is to deliver a multiple-award BPA for “commercial Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) on a pay-as-you-go basis.” The proposed BPA will allow agencies “to acquire and implement secure, seamlessly integrated, commercial cloud service offerings as a replacement for legacy enterprise IT services and products.”
SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS offerings received prominent mention in President Biden’s cybersecurity executive order issued earlier this week.
“The IT environments in which the government operates are changing and evolving at a rapid pace, driving GSA to leverage the Multiple Award Schedule Cloud SIN to develop an easy-to-use, government-wide acquisition solution for cloud services in a hybrid model,” said GSA IT Category Deputy Assistant Commissioner Keith Nakasone in a press release. “The number one thing agencies ask for is an acquisition solution that offers a full set of commercial, secure, soup-to-nuts, cloud products and services. We think now is the right time to make it happen.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused agencies to move their digital and virtual environments, GSA said, and agencies are reducing their reliance on on-premise/legacy systems. GSA hopes to develop a cloud solution set for Federal, state, local, and tribal governments.
“Anything-As-A-Service (XaaS) offerings may be considered, as new innovations are developed in future procurement offerings,” said GSA. “GSA requests cloud service providers and industry partners address the questions and provide comments as outlined in the RFI.”
Responses to the RFI are due May 24, 2021.
