GSA cloud, Marine Corps guidance and a UK cyber deal
News and notes from around the federal IT community.
18F/OCSIT sign cloud deal with Aquilent
GSA's Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies has awarded a $100 million blanket purchase agreement for cloud services to Aquilent.
In an email to FCW, GSA social media strategist Ori Hoffer said the single-award BPA is a combined 18F/OCSIT contract made with Aquilent for infrastructure as a service.
The agency awarded 11 spots on a cloud BPA in October. Those awards, said Hoffer, were made off IT Schedule 70 and were similar to contracts other government agencies use to purchase IaaS. The BPA awarded to Aquilent, said Hoffer, was competitive, but only within Schedule 70 offerors. Aquilent said the BPA is a GSA-wide procurement vehicle, allowing any group or sub-agency within GSA to procure any cloud offering within Aquilent's and its partners' full range of cloud services.
Leveraging Amazon Web Services cloud, Aquilent will offer GSA cloud hosting, managed services, architecture, development, and security, as well as access to the company's cloud management portal.
New Marine Corps guidance highlights cybersecurity
The Marine Corps' top general has issued guidance for the service that highlights cybersecurity as a critical domain in which to build capacity.
"Understanding and seizing opportunities in the cyber domain while meeting the associated challenges are increasingly critical to the [Marine Air Ground Task Forces]," Gen. Joseph Dunford wrote in the guidance.
The document, released Jan. 23, outlines Dunford's priorities three months after he became the Marine Corps commandant.
"Every day, determined adversaries attack and seek to compromise Marine Corps networks," Dunford wrote. One such suspected adversary was Iran, whose hackers reportedly breached the Navy Marine Corps Intranet in 2013.
Dunford called for the Corps to use offensive and defensive capabilities in cyberspace, and said that doing so required a plan to integrate cyber-specialist Marines into fighting forces and to boost digital interoperability across the service, among other measures.
Northrop to provide data security, info assurance to UK
The British government has awarded defense giant Northrop Grumman Corp. a seven-year contract to "provide engineering and development services in support of data security and information assurance," the firm announced Jan. 27.
The contract award comes as Washington and Westminster collaborate more closely in cyberspace.