The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intends to release a new cloud solicitation at the beginning of next year, according to a post on DHS’ website.
In the post, ICE said its target date for the release of the solicitation is Jan. 12, 2021. The DHS component agency intends to award the contract in the third quarter of the fiscal year 2021.
ICE said that the solicitation is for cloud infrastructure hosting in ICE’s existing cloud environments. Additionally, the solutions provider selected will need to provide access to FedRAMP authorized Cloud Service Provider (CSP) marketplace products, as well as cloud-based CSP resource offerings including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service within the ICE Cloud. The access to cloud product and resource offerings has to comply with the FedRAMP Impact Levels and FedRAMP authorizations.
ICE estimated the contract to be worth more than $100 million and anticipates the contract being complete on April 7, 2026.
In related FedRAMP news, FedRAMP recently released its plan to align with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) latest update to SP 800-53, Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations, Revision 5 (Rev5).
FedRAMP said it is in the process of revising all applicable FedRAMP materials to align with NIST’s updates, which NIST said “will provide a solid foundation for protecting organizations and systems – including personal privacy of individuals – well into the 21st century.” This is likely a complicated and lengthy process, given that NIST described the update as not just a minor one, but rather an entire renovation of the SP to address structural issues and technical content.
FedRAMP said it relies on NIST’s guidelines and procedures to provide standardized security requirements for cloud services. Specifically, FedRAMP leverages SP 800-53, including the baselines and test cases specified in the guidance.
