Page 10 - FCW, July 2020

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July 2020 FCW.COM
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STARS II ceiling raised to $22B
The General Services Administration has raised the ceiling of its 8(a) Streamlined Technology Application Resource for Services (STARS) II by $7 billion, to $22 billion, after the governmentwide contract hit its $15 billion ordering obligation limit.
“By raising the 8(a) STARS II ceiling, GSA continues to ensure that we meet the needs of our federal agency customers,” GSA Administrator Emily Murphy said. “As agency demand for IT products and services has increased
33,000 public-sector jobs were added between May and June
NLRB and AT&T complete first upgrade under EIS
Agencies can place new task orders through Aug. 30, 2021, and work can continue on those new orders through June 30, 2022.
during the COVID- 19 pandemic, GSA is proud that STARS II will remain available to help agencies deliver world-class IT services.”
The contract vehicle covers customized IT services and solutions from 787 small- business contractors
The National Labor Relations Board is the first agency to complete its transition to the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract vehicle.
“Our transition to EIS was quick, and we now have the required cybersecurity protections in place protecting our network and the opportunity to procure advanced technologies via the EIS program,” Kevin Petroccione, a congressional liaison specialist at NLRB, told FCW. “The entire process, from contracting to implementation and billing, was fast and smooth.”
NLRB awarded a task order to AT&T a year ago. The company is one of 10 contractors providing services under EIS, the $50 billion contract vehicle managed by the General Services Administration. The task order covered Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Services (MTIPS), and the work was completed in March.
NRLB was an existing AT&T customer so the move was technically a “like for like” exchange of services, said Chris Smith, vice president for civilian agencies and shared services in AT&T’s Global Public Sector.
Some agencies have been criticized
for not taking advantage of the opportunity to modernize their telecommunications infrastructure when they move legacy services to EIS. But Smith said the MTIPS solution is helping NLRB improve its ability to secure network traffic to and from the public internet and across the agency’s internalsites.
The services were provisioned only a few weeks before the coronavirus emergency, which allowed the agency to get ahead of a spike in demand for secure, remote network access, Smith said.
NLRB’s task order has a duration of five years and a ceiling value of $720,000. The agency is also pursuing network modernization under EIS via software-defined networking with Verizon in another five-year task order with a ceiling value of $4.1 million.
Smith said the pandemic hasn’t stopped agencies from awarding EIS task orders. “Things are moving, not slipping,” he said. “The pace has even quickened a bit. We expect that pace to continue through the end of the year, with most Cabinet-level agencies” moving forward on contracts.
— Mark Rockwell
that qualify under the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) standards. GSA said 50 federal agencies use the contract to plan and supply long-term IT projects.
All 787 contractors remain on the vehicle, GSA said. Agencies can place new task orders through Aug. 30, 2021, and work can continue on those new orders through June 30, 2022.
Citing the contract’s “unprecedented success,” Laura Stanton, acting assistant commissioner of the Office of Information Technology Category at GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, wrote in a June 10 blog post that GSA is working on the next iteration of the vehicle. The agency plans to issue the final solicitation for STARS III by the end of the fiscal year, she added.
Leslie Johnston
@lljohnston
@FCWnow published a nice article on today’s @USNatArchives Digital Preservation Framework release and #DigiPres at NARA. I had the opportunity to talk to @thisismaz last fall when we issued our draft release.
4:37 PM · Jun 30, 2020
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— Mark Rockwell